An overlooked A-bomb issue: the wait-a-couple-weeks argument

[Jim Lane]

12. The timing doesn't work out for your argument.

You're suggesting that "wait a few weeks" means risking a successful Soviet invasion of the Japanese home islands, in which Japan would be overrun by the Soviets. That scenario isn't even an "off chance". The USSR had just invaded Manchuria. It was surely not on the brink of mounting a huge amphibious invasion of what (as the million-American-casualties scenarists constantly remind us) were well-defended islands.

Suppose that, upon the Soviet declaration of war, Truman had suspended all bombing of Japan, but had told the Japanese government that it would resume on, say, August 22, and with frightening new power because we had a new weapon, unless Japan surrendered to the United States before then. There is absolutely no way that the Soviet Union, even with many bodies to throw at the problem, could have launched an invasion in that time. The USSR was short about 30 million bodies as war casualties, and the ones who were still alive were mainly west of the Urals. Even more of an obstacle would be the naval preparation. The United States, with a powerful navy, envisioned months of preparation for any invasion. The USSR was not traditionally a naval power. I don't know what kind of amphibious capability the Soviet Navy had in 1945, but I can't see them accomplishing anything before August 22.