[RedStateRocker]

And, if we had simply blockaded for a decade or so , the Japanese navy and air force being completely destroyed, many millions of Japanese would simply have slowly starved to death, pretty gruesome that.

[Bogie]

Yeah, it looks like this whole issue has been the political class playing to a public that has no genuine idea of how serious war really is.

[DavidLSpud]

The Atomic bombs (along with Russian attacks)did save

millions of Japanese.

“Gas attacks of the size and intensity recommended on these 250 square miles of urban population,” the US Army report declared, “might easily kill 5,000,000 people and injure that many more.” In the first attack, which would be launched 15 days before the Kyushu landings, American bombers would drench much of Tokyo and other cities in an early morning attack with 54,000 tons of lethal phosgene gas. Tokyo would be the largest poison gas target, because an “attack of this size against an urban city of large population should be used to initiate gas warfare.”

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p12_weber.html

...Allen, T.B. and N. Polmar, “Poisonous invasion prelude,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Aug. 4, 1995 [New York Times special features].)

Some sources say only tactical use had been approved.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/pacific-online-forum/

“Politics” told Truman that if one American life could have been saved by the use of the Atomic bombs...it must be done...

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/no-other-choice-why-truman-dropped-the-atomic-bomb-japan-13504

& agreed...without the Atomic Bombs there would be fewer of us Baby Boomers.

After visiting several interesting countries of Europe my Father was on a cruise ( ; ) ship to Japan when the Atomic Bombs were used.

[Vigilanteman]

Many did starve in the waning days of the war. My father was in the occupation force immediately after. He was a U.S. Navy officer and had seen action on an AKA landing craft which had brought supplies ashore and evacuated the dead and wounded.

MacArthur understood the first order of business was to get supplies to the starving and dying. People like my Dad took their mission seriously. They were so bad off that, in come areas, they were even eating commercial fertilizer mixed with water to stay alive.

Years later, I had the opportunity to go to Japan and work. Our landlord told me that the atomic bomb saved his life and those of others as well. He had just turned 20, had avoided the draft because he was such a good student but could avoid it no more. When the college term ended for the summer in late July, he was given home leave and was due to train as a kamikaze pilot when the bomb ended the war.