(not including suicides as seen on okinawa) were expected to be 5 to 10 times that of the allies in an invasion. As many as 20 million Japanese men, women and children might have died in a bloody invasion. Saving lives in a worthy goal. Sadly some had to die that others might live. while the atomic bombs, just as any bombs, were an unpleasant way to die, in the long run it saved lives and brought ww 2 to an end. Six long and costly years of world-wide death and destruction came to an end, thanks to the courageous decision made by president truman. how many Japanese would have died as we invaded the islands of Japan? Every city could have been leveled, every rice paddy, all utilities, sewers, etc. What bullets and bombs didn't kill the diseases that followed would finish. Certainly that figure would have exceeded those that died by far all those that died from the two bombs dropped. after having fought through iwo jima, saipan, Guam, and okinawa, there was no doubt that the Japanese people and their leaders would fight until the last man, woman, and child. If the emperor had not instructed his subjects to stop fighting after Nagasaki they were prepared to resist tanks and artillery with sticks and stones until the last man, woman, and child perished. an invasion of the Japanese mainland would have been a blood-bath for both sides. One could ask if cutting off the arm of a