That's an often-repeated and far from conclusive statement used to justify dropping the bomb to gain a temporary (it's crumbling now) international advantage.

Check out Oliver Stone's Untold History [1], or many other history sources for various opinions. There is considerable debate about it.[2]

In reality, the Japanese were on the verge of surrender. The U.S. had badly firebombed Japan, burning hundreds of thousands of people.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Untold_History_of_the_Unit...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raids_on_Japan

Not really when the "peace" party's plan was to cause horrific casualties when the allies invaded to get a negotiated.

I don't think there was much chance of Japanese surrender without an actual invasion

Yeah. They could have also dropped the nukes into the ocean. Surely that would have forced surrender without the loss of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Considering that we had to nuke two actual cities to get them to surrender, how many bombs would we have had to drop in the ocean to achieve the same effect?

I don't know about you, but I'd only have to be nuked once before I'd run up the proverbial white flag.

It not only saved Allied troops but it saved a lot of Japanese civilians and soldiers.

Also it saved a lot of prisoners of war from a cruel death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_of_war#Empire_of_Japa...