Hi James (@oriskany)

Thank you for taking the time for the long answer. I find your conclusion very interesting, but hope you allow me to make a few more comments.

My point on the American Newsreels were that in 1945 American military media suggested that the bombs were not decisive for the war and that Japan had been down already. Then one year later it is suggested that this was the final and decisive blow because Japan was still strong, which is not just an upsale of the importance but a 180 degree turn.

Please understand that I fully respect your point of view and found your even deeper insight into some of the infighting in the Japanese councils extremely interesting, however, the following argument you made: Whoever does not agree, reads the wrong books, was the weakest you made. If everyone in history would always have read what was deemed the right book, we would probably have a worldwide one-religion, zero-innovation single-power tyranny today. I am very much in favor of giving both sides of an argument a voice and I feel intelligent enough to make my own decisions.

I had written my summary of the documentary from memory (2 years old memory that was), but when I dug out the link I had to re-watch it as well. Turns out that my memory of the thing was quite good, but in addition there was a little bit of suggestive reasoning (aka direction of conspiracy) there as well:

– Americas military had spent a lot of money on Fat Man, and naturally it wanted a field test. Also the implosion technology of the Fat Man was so much “more promising” and complicated and expensive than the relatively easy to built Little Boy, that the forces wanted to see if it was worth it (and afterwards the implosion technology became the main way of building nukes)

– It’s suggested there was a rush to get it thrown, since the Americans knew that Russia’s declaration of war meant the unconditional surrender of the Japanese was a question of days. In fact both Stalin and Truman wanted to draw out the war a little longer (Stalin to get his troops to the East and Truman to have a chance to finish the bomb). As a result, the Potsdam declaration had actually been reworded to remove a passage that had guaranteed the live of the emperor because both parties feared that this would have given Japan (or at least those factions in the government you mentioned) a way out before either side could achieve its objectives. (also, to be honest, if I was Japanese, I would not have seen the distinction you are trying to make with your argument regarding the the surrender of FORCES, since “my” god-emperor is the commander in chief of said forces. Without the explicit guarantee of the emperors survival, surrender does not sound so great.)
So the revised version of the Potsdam Declaration made it much harder for the faction which supported surrender to get heard. If the Japanese would still have taken the route of spinning the original declaration as a weakness and the diplomatic voices being silenced despite there was no threat to the emperor anymore, then I fully agree that they kind of asked for their morale to be broken by the a-bombs, but it is interesting that specific steps were taken at Potsdam to make surrender less palpable.

– When the Japanese emperor ordered the surrender in the end (very interesting side story, that parts of his military tried to disobey him), he also favored the dropping of the a-bombs as a reason for doing so (in order to avoid blame and criticism for his role in the war)

I did not remember the “ sinister human experimentation brush” from my recollection of the film, but there actually were a number of indications to support exactly that conclusion:
1. the chosen time of bombing was in the morning when a lot of people where in the city centers
2. the military knew from the test in America that the bomb was so devastating that it was impossible to use it against a military target only and
3. a number of scientists in the Manhattan Project actually petitioned that the bomb would only been shown to the Japanese instead of using it on a city (basically early nuclear deterrence), but it was dismissed
4. American planed actually went to scout the area of the drop sites before and dropped different measuring instruments to collect data and sent it to the accompanying planes during the drop (this is kind of proof that at least part of it was a field test, right?)
5. the treatment of the victims by the American occupation forces in the aftermath was appalling; there was a commission to study the victims but not to treat them; people with radiation sickness were forced to stand naked in front of a group of doctors, being examined and photographed, documented, but no help was offered. In fact the survives mentioned that they were treated like scientific subjects, not people. When victims died, sometimes the remains were taken to the US for further examination without any consent, all of which further suggests that the people of Nagasaki were guinea pigs (at least the victims themselves felt that way and their testimony should be given some credence)

I know that hindsight is 20-20 and it is easy to argue what-ifs now, but if we accept that the first bomb drop was a military necessity to break the spirit of the nation, then the original question of the documentary (Why the second bomb fell?) is still valid.

I understand that plans for ground invasions were made and if it really came to that, I fully agree that America should have done everything in its power to avoid that (to save your grandpa and to save you 😉 )
At this point, the second nuke might have been necessary.

However, in the specific context of the first bomb having been dropped, would it not have been completely fine to wait for a while to let the results of the first bomb really sink in (people continuously dying from radiation sickness). Surely, if that was the real reason for the Emperor to decide to surrender, then Hiroshima alone should have been enough.
And also, time could have been given to let the declaration of war by the Russians sink in. After all, not only the Americans didn’t want a divided Japan as they Europe, but the Japanese did not want that either, right? I mean there were no communist tendencies, right? So America could have waited a couple of days to see if the Russian invasion did not produce also a surrender by itself (as the documentary argues) or in conjunction with the first bomb. If the US would have realized that Japan was still trying to fight a week after the Russian attacked, there would still have been time for the second bomb.
Also, could the Japanese government not have been warned about the imminent attack asking for the evacuation of the city. I understand that the American planes flew higher than the Japanese air defenses, or did this only mean the land-based defenses and Japanese fighters could have brought them down?
Also, what about the idea of some of the scientists to use the bomb as a threat and just tell the Japanese that you have it (or even more) and that you will drop them, if they do not surrender.

OK, one more:
I also had the following thought: If America argued that the killing of 150.000 people saved the live of 1 million American soldiers, then why was that a better deal than keeping the original version of the Potsdam Declaration and offer the Japanese the end of the war with the promise that the emperor lives (he would be safe of the death penalty, but could still be judged and jailed). Of course we don’t know if the Japanese would have taken the offer, but it would have been an option.

So before dropping the bombs there are were two options:
Kill 150.000 to safe 1million or spare the life of one individual to save 1.15 million. Why would politics change the Potsdam Declaration (and Truman really thought he had tricked Stalin here) to make the former option more likely than the latter?