[Dilbert San Diego]

Really??? I have never heard that.

[Calpublican]

Yes, I have read in several histories that the US government gave warning before any bomb was dropped. After the first bomb they were warned there would be another and still they did not surrender. The Japanese were very tough. (See Pelham’s response also on this thread.)

[Calpublican]

I should have mentioned the millions of leaflets US dropped warning civilians to evacuate.

[ConservativeInPA]

That is correct. We also told the Japs which cities that we were going to fire bomb. More civilians died in the fire bombing of Tokyo alone than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. It puts the bombing of Dresden to shame.

[tanknetter]

Really??? I have never heard that.

Sort of. There was no explicit "we have this thing called the 'atomic bomb' and if you don't surrender right now we're going to start incinerating your remaining cities using it" warning.

There were general warnings that the US was prepared to systematically start blowing Japanese cities off the map. The major one was by Truman at Potsdam. But the more specific "rain of ruin" warning came after Hiroshima, not before.