We tested it on July 16, then nuked them 4 weeks later. There were stalled surrender talks (many blame on us) and GER was already surrendered (May 7). We nuked two civilian targets to scare the world.
I was under the impression that the Japanese tried to surrender all summer, and we cut ties of communication to complete the first nuke.
Are you saying this is untrue?
It was the details of the surrender.
We we wanted a unconditional surrender.
Japan wanted terms.
Terms would have allowed the current leadership to stay in power and potentially become another threat in 10 years.
We were very concerned with invading Japan. Japan was very different from Germany in 1945.
- Japan refused to surrender unconditionally
- We had experienced the finatical defense of Okinawa and Iwo Jima and knew it would cost many US lives to successfully invlade Japan.
- the Germans were't using kamkasi tactics, they weren;t fighting to the death. Japan was donig just that.
although in principle i don;t agree with dropping the nuke, this might be a case were the end justified th means even though the means were very tragic.