HOW DOES THE FIRBOMBING OF TOKYO'S POOREST NEIGHBORSHOOD WIN A WAR? 5/8: Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb by James M. Scott
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 17 February 2025
⏱️ 10 minutes
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Summary
1945 FUKUYAMA
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Snow-Curtis-Firebombing-Atomic/dp/1324002999/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1X64JYW3Z1OT9&keywords=BLACK+SNOW+JAMES+SCOTT&qid=1674137497&s=books&sprefix=black+snow+james+scott%2Cstripbooks%2C61&sr=1-1
Seven minutes past midnight on March 10, 1945, nearly 300 American B-29s thundered into the skies over Tokyo. Their payloads of incendiaries ignited a firestorm that reached up to 2,800 degrees, liquefying asphalt and vaporizing thousands; sixteen square miles of the city were flattened and more than 100,000 men, women, and children were killed.
Black Snow is the story of this devastating operation, orchestrated by Major General Curtis LeMay, who famously remarked: “If we lose the war, we’ll be tried as war criminals.” James M. Scott reconstructs in granular detail that horrific night, and describes the development of the B-29, the capture of the Marianas for use as airfields, and the change in strategy from high-altitude daylight “precision” bombing to low-altitude nighttime incendiary bombing. Most importantly, the raid represented a significant moral shift for America, marking the first time commanders deliberately targeted civilians which helped pave the way for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki five months later.
Drawing on first-person interviews with American pilots and bombardiers and Japanese survivors, air force archives, and oral histories never before published in English, Scott delivers a harrowing and gripping account, and his most important and compelling work to date.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBS Eye on the World. Here's John Batchelor. |
| 0:05.0 | James Scott, his new book is Black Snow, Curtis Lamey, the firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb. |
| 0:14.0 | It is early March, 1945. Curtis Lamey, commanding a bomber command out of the Mariana Islands, has a new idea about how to advance his campaign against the Tokyo warmaking and bring the war to a close. |
| 0:32.6 | James, thank you. We go to the briefing of the day is March 9th. |
| 0:39.3 | But you tell me in your reporting that the word was out beforehand. |
| 0:44.3 | How so? What kind of word to the crews of the B-29s? |
| 0:48.3 | LeMay, in early March, they posted a message saying they're not going to be any more raids for several nights. |
| 0:55.4 | And of course, the airmen who are used to flying in these sort of patterns are very aware that |
| 1:01.0 | that signifies a change is coming. |
| 1:04.3 | And so the rumor mill just starts burning at that point. |
| 1:07.5 | And then, of course, LeMay, before the crews get brief, he then has to bring in all of his wing commanders and sell them and tell them exactly what's going to be going down because they're going to have to then run these briefings for all these thousands of pilots, bombadiers, and navigators for what amounts to a very radical new way of attacking the Japanese. |
| 1:26.6 | The plan is extremely detailed. amounts to a very radical new way of attacking the Japanese. |
| 1:31.3 | The plan is extremely detailed. |
| 1:36.1 | However, it involves elements that are surprising when you first read them. |
| 1:42.0 | For example, you've talked about low-level bombing, taking a bomber that was designed to fly with pressurized cabin six or seven miles above and do strategic |
| 1:46.4 | bombing he's taking it down to 5,000 feet but no weapons James exactly no well you know lemay |
| 1:53.5 | orders the bombers all stripped of their guns and if they don't take guns then they don't need to |
| 1:58.5 | take ammunition and they don't even need to take gunners. |
| 2:01.1 | And all of that frees up more weight for bombing. |
| 2:04.5 | And LeMay's rationale for that is in part because he's going to be sending these planes in, not in a formation, but singly. |
| 2:11.2 | And they're going to be going in at night. |
| 2:12.6 | And he was quite frankly worried that these guys might shoot each other down in the dark skies over Tokyo. So it was a safety |
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