Way more civilians would have died without the bombs anyways.

Plenty of examples of Japanese civilians killing themselves rather than be captured by the Americans.

It would have been an absolute bloodbath up and down the island.

Obedience to the emperor was a massive part of Japanese culture and he believed suicide was preferable to capture. Compulsory mass suicide… shudan jiketsu.

Ota Masahide, a survivor and Okinawa historian, wrote in an article for the Asia-Pacific Journal in 2014 that the military distributed hand-grenades to the civilian population as the means to commit suicide with loved ones. Those that survived the grenades “worried” about being alive and found other ways to kill themselves with other weapons such as scythes, razor blades, ropes, rocks, and sticks. Military propaganda had warned the civilian population that if they were captured, the Americans would torture, rape, and murder them.

”As the mayhem unfolded, they found all sorts of ways to kill…Men bashed their wives and parents bashed their children, young people killed the elderly and the strong killed the weak,” Masahide said. “What they felt in common was the belief that they were doing this out of love and compassion.”

If you thought the bombs were bad… the invasion would have been practically obscene.