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I don't want to make it sound like I have all the answers — I don't. I do want to emphasize that this has been in debate since 1945. It's not a crazy revisionist thing to question the orthodox narrative; even the US military analysts questioned it in 1945: http://www.anesi.com/ussbs01.htm#jstetw …pic.twitter.com/nDeBoHydaz
I'll note, as an aside, that the US invasion of Kyushu was not to start until November 1945. Some accounts make it sound it was going to happen the next day or something, that it was barely avoided. This is wrong; there were 2 more months there.
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Personally, I think the balance of evidence points against Nagasaki playing a big role, but the "mix" of Hiroshima and the Soviet invasion is tough to disentangle. There's evidence that the Soviet invasion mattered a lot. But that's not the same as saying Hiroshima didn't.
What I do think a balanced account of the timeline indicates, though, is how inadequate the simplistic "two bombs and surrender" version of the story is. It's much more complex than that, much less straightforward, and doesn't lean into easy propaganda one way or the other.
Bottom line: if your vision of historical events tends to render your historical conclusions as being very simple (and coincidentally they overlap with your present-day political views), you're probably leaving a lot of important stuff out. Real history is complicated and messy.
Further reading: for timeline issues, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's Racing the Enemy is great, and even if you don't totally go along with his overall argument, it's worth the read for a balanced look at the US, Japanese, and Soviet perspectives at the end of the war.
On the Japanese pre-planning about the invasion by the USSR, the work of Yukiko Koshiro has been eye-opening for me. On the timing of the bombs and etc., see esp. @GordinMichael 's "Five Days in August."
You never mention the implications of the second bomb on the Russians. Cannot be viewed simply as an US/Japan problem. The US, as you stated, knew where Russia goes communism follows. It could be argued that the second bomb was a message to USSR as much as to Japanese leaders.
This could've been ugly too with that much time for Japan to formulate a defense that was low tech and deadly like the Vietcong.
Yep. My 1st Marine Division dad was field promoted from buck sargeant to 2nd Lt. end of July 1945 ostensibly to prepare for Kyushu. Funny twist; bombs away and by middle of August the promo was rescinded. Procede to China Sgt. to sit between Mao and Chiang...
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