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From: hhm@ihlpy.att.com (Herschel H Mayo)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: USS Wisconsin
Message-ID: <1990Aug22.025421.16408@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 22 Aug 90 02:54:21 GMT
References: <1990Aug14.033546.8342@cbnews.att.com> <1990Aug21.025400.2322@cbnews.att.com>
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From: hhm@ihlpy.att.com (Herschel H Mayo)
In article <1990Aug21.025400.2322@cbnews.att.com>, donnelly@cod.nosc.mil (Thomas F. Donnelly) writes:
> 
> Duane Mantick writes that 
>         "An invasion of the mainland (Japan) was considered to cost
> 	the lives of approx. one MILLION soldiers.  This has often
> 	been stated as a reason why the use of the Atomic Bomb 
> 	became attractive as a way to end the war."
> 
> The latest issue of Technology Review claims that American estimates
> of casualties of an invasion were much lower than this, around 50,000
> (I think this is the number in the article).  Japan was quite weakened 
> at this late point in the war, and both sides knew the end was near. 
> The article states that political reasons for using the bomb may also 
> have been important to Truman, such as holding a trump card over the 
> Soviets.

Sorry, no offence, but this is revisionist bunk born of ignorance and
political agendas of those who are attempting to foist it on the public.
The Soviets incurred horrible casualties in the storming of Berlin. Their 
losses multiplied many times would have been the result of an invasion of
Japan. Urban fighting in Japan would have bled the allies white in 
fighting block by block as was the case in Berlin. This subject was 
debated at length in another group. One poster recommended Imperial
 Tragedy ( or a similar title ) as a definative debunking of the myth 
that the Japanese were ready to surrender. 

                                                  Larry Mayo

[mod.note:  Having had both sides of this issue expressed, let me
submit that this is an issue of some contention (to put it mildly).
As the topic is both historical and non-technical, let's let it rest
at that.  Interested readers may tune to soc.history if they wish to
continue the debate. - Bill ]