Nevertheless a straight and purely military target

Nevertheless, a straight and purely military target would have still had the shock ef-
fect the bomb was originally intended for while also sparing the lives of a tremendous number of
noncombatants. Furthermore, the US had planned an invasion on Kyushu on 1 November 1945.
The latter involved over 700,000 troops, would approximately cost 25,000 lives 30 and evidently,
American leaders sought to avoid it. However, Stalin had announced that the Soviet military
would invade Manchuria on 15 August 1945, which was before the US ’ scheduled attack. Hence,
another alternative would have been to wait for the Soviet invasion and then drop the bombs had
the Japanese still refused to claim defeat. Why didn ’ t Truman wait for the Soviets ’ entry? The of-
ficial reason the president gave was that once the atomic bomb was ready, a delay in its use
would have resulted in a loss of time and of American lives. Notwithstanding, there is undoubt-
edly a slight probability that the attack of Manchuria could have led to a Japanese surrender
without the need of using the nuclear weapon, or of invading Kyushu. Overall, if some of these
25
Ibid
26
Ibid
27
Bernstein, Barton J. “ Gen. Marshall and the Atomic Bombing of Japanese Cities. ” Arms Control Today (2015).
28
Ibid
29
Ibid
30
Alperovitz, Gar. "Hiroshima: Historians Reassess." Foreign Policy.

8
alternatives were combined, the use of the bombs could have been unnecessary, and the Ameri-
can invasion or the massive deaths of civilians would have been avoided.
31
The fact that these al-
ternatives were truly available tears down the long-established myth that there were no other
choices.
Under other conditions, if we suppose that there were exclusively two options, the argu-
ments intended to defend the use the bombs manifest several flaws. The primary justification that
remains is that dropping the nuclear weapon saved “ half a million ” or “ hundreds of thousands ” of
American lives. 32 The statements may seem conceivable at first sight because of the atrocity and
violence of the war. Yet, there is no actual basis supporting these claims. 33 On the contrary, sub-
stantial evidence suggests that the latter were unsound. For instance, the “ Joint War Plans Com-
mittee (JWPC), a high-level advisory group to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, concluded that about
40,000 Americans would die in the likely two-stage assault on Japan: southern Kyushu. ” 34 An-
other advisory group, the Joint Staff Planners (JSP) supported these “ educated guesses ” as well.
Even though pre-Hiroshima accurate estimates were extremely difficult to obtain, most US mili-
tary planners approximated the number of casualties between 20,000 and 46,000. 35 Truman
might have exceedingly exaggerated the number of American lives saved to prevent citizens ’
doubts about the use of the bomb. The destruction of this myth could unfold questions about
whether the decision was justified - morally and military. Another explanation to the decision is
that the Japanese were warned prior to the strike. In fact, in the Potsdam Declaration, the US an-
31
Ibid
32
Bernstein, Barton J. "A postwar myth: 500,000 U.S. lives saved."