Pacific Business Daily

In retrospect, was the American involvement in the Pacific in WWII all in vain?

All the island hopping, bloody battles, and fire-bombing was all in anticipation for a direct invasion of the Japanese mainland, but an invasion became unnecessary when the Japanese surrendered after the atomic bombs were dropped. Therefore, wasn't all the time, money, supplies, and lives lost in the pacific theater essentially all in vain?

Public Comments

1. The atomic bomb needed time to be developed, and the United States certainly needed to act in the interval. Had the Americans done nothing the Japanese would have had time gather strength and cause more damage to their neighbors.
2. What if the bomb had not worked?It was only theoretically possible.In the mean time they could have taken over much of the Pacific,perhaps even Australia. This would have only made it more difficult to extricate them even WITH a fully functional bomb.
3. Not only would it have taken much longer to make the headstrong Japanese surrender without an Atomic bomb being dropped on them, if the Americans had not devolped it first, the Japanese or Germans may have developed it before the end of the war, causing a catostrauphic change in history.