"Nuking Hirsohima and Nagasaki was the right thing because a land invasion would have brought even higher casualties." How much truth is there to this defense of the use of nuclear weapons in ww2?

by JohnBrown1ng

The statement above is a common justification for using nuclear bombs in ww2 that I see people use. How much truth is there to this statement. Was this really the reasoning at the time? Would a land invasion really have cost more lives? How would one know?

jschooltiger

Lots in our FAQ about this, with this question likely being the most pertinent to you. But the short version of this is that "invade or bomb" was not the reasoning at the time; this is a narrative that was created in the postwar period, as a post-hoc justification.