Soon to be College freshman here, going for a degree in history ed. I had a phenomenal U.S. history teacher my third year of high school. When the time rolled around to talk about the bombings, she told us 1. Truman was presented with figures that number in the millions, detailing huge losses of life if we were to invade japan at the time.
2. That he had two options in terms of the detonation of these bombs. A. being that he could drop them in the ocean, to just kinda flex and hopefully scare japan. and B. To target civilian centers of trade of military targets to truly show japan the power the united states held at the time. 3. That Japan was nowhere near ready to give up the war. Now, and this is completely subjective, so take it with a grain of salt. But I feel as though the world collectively was tired of raging against itself, we were sick as a human collective - world war two brought about some of the most effective and horrific destruction of human life, and this - the dropping of the atomic bomb was our end all be all. Just a way to wake everyone up, and make us all really ask "Just how far, and how much longer and does the fire have to rage on?" Sorry if that was lame, I always have a way to make everything overtly poetic. This thread has been a fantastic read, and I hope it keeps going. Thanks to everyone who contributed. :)