rrender. The atomic bomb offered a way to change that. A bloody invasion loomed if atomic bombs did not force the Japanese to surrender.
             The decision to drop the atomic bomb was a difficult one that would affect the rest of the world for years to come. Before the bomb was scheduled to be dropped, the United States War Department was predicting a cost of some 500,000 American lives to be lost as the cost to invade and defeat Japan (Atomic Bomb). The United States regarded the matter of dropping the bomb as exceedingly important. America had just gone through a bitter experience at Okinawa (the last major island campaign when the United States lost more than 12,500 men killed and missing and the Japanese more than 100,000 killed in eighty-two days of fighting). (Rhodes 687). This loss of American lives would not be tolerated, and an alternative method to defeating Japan was needed. The Japanese demonstrated that they would not surrender and that they would fight to the death. It was expected that resistance in Japan, with their home ties, would be e
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