"The Americans were preparing for the invasion of Japan, and had two million body bags ready for the casualties - my uncle was involved in their logistics and deployment."
I have heard that too and it seemed to make sense and support the case for nuking Japan.It was part of the standard story that I grew up with.
The Japanese leadership must have realized that the game was over when they saw their ally Germany go down in early 1945. They would have known that the allies could then concentrate on them. No way out. Therefore the reports of the Japanese seeking to surrender then make sense. If that was the case then there was no justification for dropping the nukes. There was no real resistance when the allies actually did occupy Japan so there was no reason to expect resistance earlier if the Japanese government had surrendered six months earlier.
