Simple blockade wouldn't work. Blockade + bombing would have killed at least as many civilians as the Bomb; more, if Saipan is an example. The Emperor had to actually surrender for these people to stop fighting.
Civilian surrenders and suicides
Saipan had been seized from Germany after World War I, and thus a large number of Japanese civilians lived there—at least 25,000.[10] The US erected a civilian prisoner encampment on 23 June that soon had more than 1,000 inmates. Electric lights at the camp were conspiciously left on overnight to attract other civilians with the promise of three warm meals and no risk of accidentally being shot in combat.[10]
Emperor Hirohito personally found the threat of defection of Japanese civilians disturbing.[10] Much of the community was of low caste, and there was a risk that live civilians would be surprised by generous U.S. treatment. Native Japanese sympathizers would hand the Americans a powerful propaganda weapon to subvert the "fighting spirit" of Japan in radio broadcasts. At the end of June, Hirohito sent out an imperial order encouraging the civilians of Saipan to commit suicide.[10] The order authorized the commander of Saipan to promise civilians who died there an equal spiritual status in the afterlife with those of soldiers perishing in combat. General Tojo intercepted the order on 30 June and delayed its sending, but it went out anyway the next day. By the time the Marines advanced on the north tip of the island, from 8 July–12, most of the damage had been done.[10] Over 10,000 Japanese civilians committed suicide in the last days of the battle to take the offered privileged place in the afterlife, some jumping from "Suicide Cliff" and "Banzai Cliff".
Weapons and the tactics of close quarter fighting also resulted in very high civilian casualties. Civilians shelters were located virtually everywhere on the island, with very little difference noticable to attacking Marines. The standard method of clearing suspected bunkers was with high-explosive and/or high-explosives augmented with petroleum (eg. gelignite, napalm, diesel fuel). In such conditions, high civilian casualties were inevitable. [11]
In the end, about 22,000 Japanese civilians died. Almost the entire garrison of troops on the island — at least 30,000 — died. For the Americans, the victory was the most costly to date in the Pacific War. 2,949 Americans were killed and 10,364 wounded, out of 71,000 who landed.[12
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