History Memes

The Japanese Empire was not 'already collapsed', and the atomic bombings were not to 'show the world the supremacy'. Hell, the Japanese government was seriously considering continuing the fight after the first atomic bombing, and after the second bombing, still maintained a demand for conditions to their surrender and had to fight off an internal coup that wanted to continue fighting anyway.

US command at this time considered the three options to be the atomic bombings as a Hail-Mary, or else to resort to either blockade or invasion. In the case of blockade, millions of Japanese civilian deaths were projected - in the case of invasion (which was regarded as the more likely option), over a million American casualties were projected. The Purple Hearts that were produced in anticipation of the (never-performed) invasion lasted the US the rest of the 20th century.