So once again it's that time of year, where there's an endless amount of Discourse surrounding the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There's a nigh endless amount of content, but I wanted to pull from one specific source - popular leftist youtuber, Shaun, who put his own thoughts in a short thread that generated thousands of likes and retweets. The final tweet of the thread:

nearly all truman's advisors, and truman himself, thought the war would be over before an invasion was necessary. they knew japan was looking for peace prior to the bombs being dropped

There are two elements to this specific tweet. First, that "nearly all Truman's advisors, and Truman himself, thought the war would be over before an invasion was necessary". Second, that "they knew Japan was looking for peace prior to the bombs being dropped"

Shaun did not source his tweet, but a commonly cited source is this site, which contains a set of quotes from senior American military and government officials about the atomic bomb. I'm going to take the liberty of using it to provide the sources that Shaun did not

So the first element of the tweet, that Truman and "his advisors" thought that the war would be over before an invasion was necessary. This is true to an extent - a number of senior American military personnel did indeed think that the bombs were unnecessary, and that Japan would surrender. But the reason that they thought this was because they believed strategic bombing and the blockade had already defeated Japan. They did not believe that Japan was prepared to surrender before the atomic bombs were dropped - they believed that starvation would eventually force Japan to surrender, without the need of an invasion or the atomic bombs

A quote from Truman’s Chief of Staff, Admiral William Leahy

"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons."

A quote from Admiral Nimitz (though this is completely unsourced)

The Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, Chester Nimitz, said in 1945 that “The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan.”

A quote from Hap Arnold (though again unsourced)

Henry “Hap” Arnold, commanding general of the Air Force, said in 1949 that “it always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse.”

All of these quotes convey the same message - from the perspective of Allied military planners, strategic bombing and the blockade had already defeated Japan, and Japan would surrender eventually.

Was this true? Japan's economy had been smashed, there were widespread food shortages, the Japanese military was in shambles, it's true. But this was also the case from the beginning of 1945 on, and Japan did not surrender. Some senior American military planners may have believed that Japan was defeated and it was only a matter of time until they surrendered, but they still went ahead with planning a massive invasion

The second element of Shaun's tweet alleges that dropping the atomic bombs on Japan was a criminal act because "[Truman] knew Japan was looking for peace prior to the bombs being dropped" This is an interesting justification - because Japan was "looking for peace", the use of the atomic bombs was criminal.

For one, there was no official offer of peace made by the Japanese government. The Search for a Negotiated Peace: JAPANESE DIPLOMATS ATTEMPT TO SURRENDER JAPAN PRIOR TO THE BOMBING OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI goes through the attempts of some Japanese officials to make peace overtures. Without exception, the appeals made were by Japanese diplomats or officers in Sweden or Switzerland acting independently, without any backing from the actual Japanese government. These diplomats or officers were often quite junior in rank. While these overtures existed, peace overtures from a mid ranking officer in the Stockholm embassy can't exactly be construed as "the Japanese government was looking for peace"

The Japanese government was also attempting to "negotiate peace" by trying to get Stalin to offer to mediate between the US and Japan, with the goal of playing the Soviets and Americans off against one another and preserving as much of their empire as possible. The Japanese did not know that the Soviets had already promised to declare war on Japan, and thus their efforts were in vain. But does the fact that these efforts existed mean that Allies military activities against Japan should have been halted?

Instead of "looking for peace", Japan rejected the Allied peace offer contained in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26th