> It's fine to say that Japan would have surrendered without invasion, but such a strong assertion needs to be backed by equally strong evidence. This was show

> It's fine to say that Japan would have surrendered without invasion, but such a strong assertion needs to be backed by equally strong evidence. This was shown by post-war inquiries. Japan had already offered a complete surrender, contingent only on preserving the emperor. They had been trying to surrender since April, according to documents leaked by the president's Chief of Staff, on roughly the same terms that the Americans ultimately accepted. The rush to drop the bombs was that the Soviet Union had promised to join the war against Japan on August 10, giving the Western allies only a few days to make sure that they would be the ones occupying Japan, not the Soviets. A cynic might also suspect a bit of enthusiasm among U.S. military to field test the power of their new weapon.