Thanks, gocomics.com
What if … we’d just let the Japanese go ahead and surrender? It was obvious, it was coming soon…no matter how bad our brass hats and imperial brains wanted to see what their own mass murder might achieve. Our nation matched Hitler’s style in a matter of seconds, not years.
I presume most readers here weren’t around and contemporary to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I’d suggest you read John Hersey’s HIROSHIMA. A prizewinner in its day … for good reason.
Eideard 
I am a fan of Japan, so please don’t misunderstand this….. Japan did kill hundreds and thousands of Filipinos during WW2. Manila, Philippines was the second most devastated city in WW2… Warsaw was first. Using nuclear weapon was evil, but , I assume at that time, it was the most reasonable thing to do to end the war.
“Manila is second to Stalingrad as being the city with the fiercest urban fighting during World War II.
During the battle of Manila in 1945 an estimated 100,000 to 240,000 Filipinos civilians were killed, both deliberately by the Japanese in the Manila massacre and from artillery and aerial bombardment by U.S. and Japanese forces. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Manila_(1945)#Destruction_of_the_city
“The Manila massacre, also called the Rape of Manila, involved atrocities committed against Filipino civilians in the City of Manila, the capital of the Philippines, by Japanese troops during the Battle of Manila (3 February 1945 – 3 March 1945) which occurred during World War II. The total number of civilians who were killed was at least 100,000.
…Before the battle, deciding that he would be unable to defend Manila with the forces available to him, and to preserve as large a force as possible in the rural mountain Luzon region of the Philippines, General Tomoyuki Yamashita had insisted on a complete withdrawal of Japanese troops from Manila in January 1945. However, Yamashita’s order was ignored by about 10,000 Japanese marines under Rear Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi who chose to remain in Manila.
Extensive as were the Japanese atrocities during the battle, American artillery and firepower were most responsible for the destruction of Manila’s architectural and cultural heritage and, according to one estimate, caused 40 percent of the total Filipino deaths during the battle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manila_massacre
“The starting point for understanding Japan’s surrender in 1945 is to recognize it required two separate and equally vital steps. First, someone with legitimate authority had to make the political decision that Japan would capitulate. Second, Japan’s armed forces had to comply with the government’s surrender. Given the incredible history of defiance of government authority by Japan’s armed forces for at least the 15 years prior to 1945, not only American but also Japanese leaders including the emperor, understood that a surrender order by the government, even one from the emperor, might not secure compliance by the armed forces.
…Meanwhile in the afternoon of August 8, before the entry of the Soviet Union into the war or the bombing of Nagasaki, the emperor met with Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo. Shortly after the war, Togo affirmed that the emperor stated the war must end at this meeting. New evidence now confirms Togo’s account that it was the atomic bomb that moved the emperor to decide to end the war.
But this did not mean the war assuredly would end because it remained very uncertain that Japan’s armed forces would comply even with the emperor’s order.” https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/japans-surrender-part-i
“…Prime Minister Suzuki in a December 1945 interview also admitted something else. The advent of atomic bombs showed the Americans no longer needed to invade Japan. In other words, the Nagasaki bomb laid waste to the argument that the United States had no arsenal of powerful atomic weapons. If the Americans did not mount an invasion, Ketsu Go was bankrupt and the high command had no strategy short of national suicide.” https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/japans-surrender-military-coup-1945
Re: Ketsu-Go (Decisive) Operation see https://irp.fas.org/eprint/arens/chap4.htm
No Recipe for Victory : Invasion or Blockade? American Army and Navy planners debated how to vanquish Japan during World War II’s final weeks. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/victory-in-japan-army-navy-1945
Operation Starvation https://www.historynet.com/operation-starvation/
‘We Hated What We Were Doing’: Veterans Recall Firebombing Japan
American airmen who took part in the 1945 firebombing missions grapple with the particular horror they witnessed being inflicted on those below. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/magazine/we-hated-what-we-were-doing-veterans-recall-firebombing-japan.html
The blockade explicitly aimed to cut off food supplies and kill millions of Japanese, mostly civilians, from starvation. Atomic weapons then available lacked the power or numbers to kill by measures more than thousands. Critics of how the war ended quote statements by Naval officers that the war could have been ended without atomic bombs. What the critics do not disclose is that this alternate means to end the war aimed to kill Japanese by the millions. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/victory-in-japan-army-navy-1945
“No Pearl Harbor, No Hiroshima”
However: “As Japan industrialized during the late 19th century, it sought to imitate Western countries such as the United States, which had established colonies in Asia and the Pacific to secure natural resources and markets for their goods. Japan’s process of imperial expansion, however, put it on a collision course with the United States, particularly in relation to China.” https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/path-pearl-harbor
“Did the Japanese offer to surrender before Hiroshima?” (Part 2) by Alex Wellerstein http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2022/05/06/did-the-japanese-offer-to-surrender-before-hiroshima-part-2/ (includes link to part 1)
“The Three Alls Policy (Japanese: Sankō Sakusen) was a Japanese scorched earth policy adopted in China during World War II, the three “alls” being “kill all, burn all, loot all”
Contemporary Japanese documents referred to the policy as “The Burn to Ash Strategy” (Jinmetsu Sakusen).” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Alls_Policy