Read Richard Frank’s “Downfall” about the history of the decision to drop the bombs. He devastates all the lib/commie revisionist arguments about using the bombs on Japan.
One point he proves beyond a doubt is that dropping the bombs SAVED JAPANESE LIVES. Millions of them, in fact. At the time of the surrender, the Japanese were on the edge of starvation. We were prepared to continue the conventional bombings of the cities and transportation infrastructure, along with the interdiction of all seaborne transport through aerial and submarine attack, and a very effective mining program. If the war continued another 60 or 90 days, the Japanese people would not have made it through the winter without eating each other.
And no, they were not on the “verge of surrender” before the bombs were dropped. A cursory reading of internal military and diplomatic dispatches in June-July 1945 makes that clear. And we knew it because we were reading them at the time.
The mass of the US public and especially the US media...has virtually no understanding or grasp of what Japanese leadership was in 1945. The war was never going to be over...until you really laid down a harsh situation and future reality.
If I had been standing in Tibbets shoes in 1945...I’d do just the same thing, and never look back.