[brimble]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa#Military_use...

Also, Germany did something very similar near the end of the war, as they got desperate for manpower and fighting moved into their own territory.

[EDIT] Oh, and see farther down the page for, "Civilian losses, suicides, and atrocities". The lived experience of Okinawa (one of only a couple "home" territories for Japan that the US invaded before the bombs) was surely part of why so many expected an invasion of Japan to be a bitter, horrifying bloodbath.

[ble]

Read a little further down and the description has a different character: the Imperial Japanese Army showed, at best, an indifference to the lives of Japanese and indigenous civilians in Okinawa. Worse than the indifference, they propagandized civilians to believe that the Americans would rape, murder, and torture them and encouraged them to commit suicide or to launch suicide attacks and otherwise tried to maneuver civilians into harm's way.

At the time it probably did look like civilians were being turned into defensive soldiers- in the fullness of time, I think it looks more like a desperate and cruel army brutalizing a civilian population, sometimes pushing them into harm's way. I'd also presume that the treatment of the civilian population was worse for indigenous Okinawans-- maybe even today Okinawans can find themselves treated as 'not real Japanese'.

It's been a while since I read 'Embracing Defeat' but I recall its summary of the state of Japan towards the end of the war and a lecturer saying, in effect, that nobody had to invade Japan to cause the deaths of millions, the supply chain (Asian mainland colonies collapsing) / labor (men at all near military age gone to war and many of them dead or captured) / agricultural situation was so dire that the U.S. could have set a blockade and millions of Japanese would have died with 0 fighting.

The counter-argument to the necessity of the bombs is basically that the U.S. knew Japan could not effectively resist and though the U.S. might not have had a way of guessing, the highest levels of Japanese government were already in the process of discussing when and how to surrender right around the time the bombs were dropped. IIRC about the emperor's message of surrender, the bombs may have made it easier for the emperor to preserve face when surrendering, as such weapons make it easier to justify a surrender as a positive action.

[major505]

They saw a city disappear from the map in a matter of seconds and did not surrendered. After the second bomb, some officials tried to kidnap the Emperor, in his way to the radio where he would do the surrender spech so they could continue the war.

[vanusa]

If anything, when a country signals their willingness to use their children and grandparents as canon fodder -- it shows how close to collapse they really are (and that they know they are very close to collapse).

[major505]

I think there was even a american soldier that was hited by a crossbow.