13. Was it Actually Unnecessary to Atomically Bomb Japan in WWII?
One of the more persistent myths of the Second World War has it that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was unnecessary because Japan was already reeling and on the verge of surrender. The Allies simply had to blockade Japan, and the Japanese government would have come to its senses sooner rather than later, and thrown in the towel. A variety of factors make that theory nonsensical. The first is that the war when the atomic bombs were dropped was not limited to the Japanese home islands and the choice of whether to invade or simply blockade them.
Japan in August 1945, still occupied vast territories in Asia and the Pacific and misgoverned hundreds of millions of conquered subjects. They endured daily horrors from their Japanese overlords, who subjected them to casual brutality, torture, rape, murder, and massacres. On average, roughly 250,000 conquered civilians – a number greater than the estimated 200,000 fatalities caused by both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs – died every month as a result of awful Japanese barbarities. Those civilians would have continued to suffer and die each day, week, and month, that the war dragged on while the Allies waited for the Japanese authorities to make up their minds about whether and when to surrender.
