HOW DOES THE FIRBOMBING OF TOKYO'S POOREST NEIGHBORSHOOD WIN A WAR? 8/8: 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
⏱️ 5 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
1944 WICHITA B-29
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 | I'm John back with James Scott. His new book is Black Snow, Curtis LeMay, the firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb. |
| 0:12.0 | The firebombing of Tokyo in March is unique in human history. The atomic bomb used over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, unique in human history. |
| 0:20.0 | What after the war happens is we know the Cold War. |
| 0:25.1 | And Curtis Lamei rises in ranking because he's a younger man. |
| 0:29.8 | He's 38, 39 at the end of the war, rises through the 1950s. |
| 0:34.9 | He becomes, I don't know, James, I didn't write this down. |
| 0:38.0 | Is he an early commander of SAC, strategic air command? |
| 0:41.3 | Is he the first? |
| 0:42.0 | Yeah, and under Lameh, I mean, you see strategic air command really become a much greater |
| 0:48.2 | organization. |
| 0:49.2 | I mean, he moves it to Nebraska. |
| 0:50.8 | He brings his war-winning team of guys over from World War II and really gives it |
| 0:56.1 | the gravitas and the in the in and what else. He deserves a lot of credit for the success of |
| 1:01.2 | strategic air command. Right. The big Boeing bombers, the B-36, the B-47, the B-52. These are |
| 1:08.2 | LeMay's concepts and the end of the world from LeMay's point of view. |
| 1:13.3 | He rises to be chief of staff of the Air Force. I remember a picture during the Cuban missile |
| 1:18.9 | crisis of John Kennedy in his rocking chair and his joint chiefs of staff before him. And there's |
| 1:25.8 | the fat one, the chubby one sitting there staring |
| 1:28.8 | back in kennedy he didn't get along with mcnamara who had been his subordinate why not |
| 1:34.0 | yeah you know i mean in part i mean quite frankly lemae does a pretty good service in the early |
| 1:40.2 | rise of vietnam and trying to try to block mcnamara from sort of going down the road that he does. |
| 1:45.3 | But LeBay's not a politician. His aide's and former colleague said, look, he was not the kind of guy |
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