What if the US troops found out the US had the bomb before the invasion of Japan

A week before the US is going to invade Japan the Average troops heard that the US had the A bomb but did not use it . How would they react and what might they do if they knew the war could be ended by dropping the A bomb on two Japanese cities instead of invading . Remember they Knew the US figured over 1 million of them would be ether KIA or WIA in the invasion .
 
Setting aside how very extremely unlikely a "US has the A-bomb but decides not to use it and sends troops in to invade Japan instead" scenario is, (and how ludicrous a decision both politically and militarily it would be), and how unlikely it would be that said leak would occur, I imagine that most servicemen would find the A-bomb story difficult to believe, initially at least. It would also be difficult for them, and the American public to wrap their minds around the details and magnitude of the weapon. How does the story leak out? What details about the scratched bombing and about the bombs themselves are leaked?
 
How the rumors starts is one of the bomber crew of Boxcar get Drunk and tells what he knows and it goes from there .
 
How the rumors starts is one of the bomber crew of Boxcar get Drunk and tells what he knows and it goes from there .

Said crew member gets court-marshaled for breech of security; perhaps with a charge of treason. Besides, before Hiroshima, the crews of neither Enola Gay or Bockscar had full understanding of the size of the weapon. In any case, such a leak would be treated by the troops as "gleeful science fiction," given the claim contradicts the physics they were taught. How fast would such news spread? The bomb would be dropped before a majority of troops would even hear the rumor.
 
Then General Groves should be demoted to corpral for piss poor security on the most important 'secret' project on Earth.
 
Part of the problem with this idea is that the average GI wouldn't know what an atomic bomb what or what it was capible of. Very few ppl had a concept of what it was, and nobody knew what it would actually do in a combat situation.
 
Probably told something along the lines of "we were planning to drop it right on top of the Jap defenses just before y'all get there, that way there is no Omaha Beach meat grinder."

Remember the effects were barely known, dropping it on a landing beach a few hours before the invasion wouldn't have been considered an insane idea like it is nowdays.
 
It depends on what the troops actually hear and what they believe. If they simply thought the U.S. had some kind of super-weapon that was soon to be deployed, they would probably still fight. If it was widely believed that they'd been set up (which is less plausible) there would probably be some very desultory fighting and a few fragged lieutenants.

One wonders if the American soldiers in Vietnam, who knew very well that their government possessed the means of easily annihilating the enemy, were equally inspired.
 
A week before the US is going to invade Japan the Average troops heard that the US had the A bomb but did not use it . How would they react and what might they do if they knew the war could be ended by dropping the A bomb on two Japanese cities instead of invading.

Out in the Pacific Theater who exactly knows what an 'A Bomb' does let alone knows what it stands for? I sincerely doubt they were shipping film reels of the Nevada test off to be viewed by the flight crews.
 
Out in the Pacific Theater who exactly knows what an 'A Bomb' does let alone knows what it stands for? I sincerely doubt they were shipping film reels of the Nevada test off to be viewed by the flight crews.

First of all, the means of distributing information was not there. Read the story about Tokyo Rose. She was an American citizen, visiting relatives in Japan, trapped there in December, 1941. Able to speak English, they gave her a job on the radio, where she reported the results of battles for American forces to hear. Unfortunately, that was classified information for Americans, as news of casualties might hurt morale. Tokyo Rose was convicted of treason and sent to prison for a few years when she came back to the US. Fortunately, she was eventually pardoned.

In recent years, US troops deployed in Iraq, could not tell their families exactly where they were until they came home. In war situations, information is highly suppressed.
 
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