>japan didnt surrender though when askd twice. in the heat of
>the war, it wouldnt make sense to give japan time to regroup
>and maybe use a terrible weapon like the a-bomb on the
>united states. you have to act quick and pound your enemy,
>in this case the jap aggressor who started the whole thing,
>into submission with minimul loss of your troops.

In the opinion of aformentioned
Truman officials and military
brass, it would've been impossible
for Japan to regroup to the extent
you're referring to.

Here's what we know:

- After the fall of the Mariana Islands, including Saipan,
to the U.S. in July of 1944, the impending defeat of
Japan became increasingly apparent to many Allied
and Japanese leaders.

- The Marianas had been a key area within Japan's defense
perimeter; now Japan would be within range of bombing
runs from Pacific Ocean locations that were superior to
the China bases that had been used for bombing missions
(Akira Iriye, Power and Culture: The Japanese-American
War, 1941-1945, pg. 174; Michael Sherry, The Rise of Am-
erican Air Power, pg. 176).

- From November 1944 onward, Japan was the subject of nu-
merous large-scale B-29 non-nuclear bombing raids (Robert
Butow, Japan's Decision To Surrender, pg. 41). When Air Force
chief General Hap Arnold asked in June 1945 when the war was
going to end, the commander of the B-29 raids, General Curtis
LeMay, told him September or October 1945, because by then
they would have run out of industrial targets to bomb
(Sherry, pg. 300 & 410(143n)).

- While Japan was being bombarded from the sky, a Naval blockade
was strangling Japan's ability to import oil and other vital materials
and its ability to produce war materials (Barton Bernstein, ed., The
Atomic Bomb, pg. 54). Admiral William Leahy, the Chief of Staff to
President Roosevelt and then to President Truman, wrote, "By the
beginning of September, Japan was almost completely defeated
through a practically complete sea and air blockade." (William
Leahy, I Was There, pg. 259).

After the bombing, Admiral
William D. Leary, Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
called the atomic bomb "a ba-
rbarous weapon," also noting
that: "The Japanese were alr-
eady defeated and ready to
surrender."

>but it was unknown how many japanese people would die from
>an intesified bombing because it was unknown when the would
>surrender.

That's not what top military
officials believed. Based on
intercepted messages,the Japan-
ese were more than willing to
surrender so long as the emperor
retain his thrown. A conditional
surrender was even put forth by
Truman's advisors such as Joseph
Grew and Henry Stimson, who argued
that the surrender terms should be
modified in order to bring a quick
end to the war.

Moreover, an avalanche of archival
documents released or discovered
over the past decade -- including
Truman's 'lost' diary and a series
of revealing letters to his wife,
Bess -- as Gar Alperovitz and Kai
Bird point out in the 10 May 1993
issue of "The Nation" of New York,
'leaves no doubt that Truman knew
the war would end "a year sooner
now" and without an invasion'.