I recommend the book "Tennozan: The Battle of Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb" by George Feifer. The book is about the battle for Okinawa, where a Japanese army fought to the death. There were only about 4000 Japanese survivors. The rest of the Japanese army was either killed in action or committed suicide. The Japanese army survivors were often those who were so badly wounded that they could not commit suicide.

The projections for an invasion of the Japanese mainland were for massive casualties, both in the Japanese military, civilians and American forces.

As horrible as the atomic bombs were, Feifer argues that they actually saved Japanese lives since they induced the Japanese to surrender.

My wife and I just finished watching the HBO and Apple+ series on the Second World War. The war was horrific in every dimension. No one who has not experienced this horror (as the Ukrainians are today) can understand.

By the time the battle of Okinawa took place Japanese air power was wiped out. The US bombers could bomb largely without any resistance. The firebombing of Tokyo was at least as bad as the atomic bomb. There are no accurate estimate for the Japanese deaths, but they were massive. If this had continued during an invasion of Japan the death and destruction would have been unimaginable.

The Japanese did not give up after Hiroshima. There was an understanding that this was a Uranium bomb. They knew that these bombs were difficult to produce.

After the bombing of Nagasaki, which was a plutonium bomb, the Japanese knew that the US could keep making these bombs and they knew they had to give up.

The horror is not just the atomic weapons used on Japan but the horror of the war.

In closing I will note that the current generation of nuclear weapons have vastly more destructive power than the weapons used in Japan. We can only hope that they will never be used.