RAGE OF THE USAAF MARCH-AUGUST 1945: 1/8: 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
🗓️ 16 October 2023
⏱️ 12 minutes
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Summary
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
1940 TOKYO
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| 0:00.0 | This episode is brought to you by Shopify. |
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| 0:34.0 | This is CBS I On The World. Here's John Bachelor. |
| 0:39.0 | It is November 24, 1944. |
| 0:43.0 | Brigadier General Haywood Hansel arrives in the theatre of the Pacific Theatre |
| 0:50.0 | in the war against the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army. |
| 0:54.0 | These are the last months of the Japanese Pacific War fought by the US Navy, the US Marine Corps and the Army Air Force. |
| 1:02.0 | General Hansel has a mission which is to take a new weapon, a very expensive weapon called the B-29 |
| 1:10.0 | and turn it into the destruction of the Japanese ability to make war. |
| 1:15.0 | I welcome James Scott, James M. Scott is the author of the new book Black Snow, Curtis Lemay, the fire bombing of Tokyo and the road to the atomic bomb. |
| 1:26.0 | James greetings to you and congratulations telling the story of these months which I'd read about beginning an end but not in between as to how the B-29 a very buggy aircraft in addition to being expensive. |
| 1:43.0 | Did not arrive as a success. |
| 1:46.0 | The early days were a challenge to the Army Air Force, to the high command in Washington and to the men who flew the B-29. |
| 1:56.0 | So we needed to start with Haywood Hansel, a premier figure in the Air Force for his success in the European campaign by the Army Air Force. |
| 2:07.0 | A great success which is why he's given what is regarded, what he regards as the best command in the Army Air Force, the 20th Air Force. |
| 2:15.0 | What is his mission? What are the challenges for Haywood Hansel? What do we need to know about him? Good even to James. |
| 2:22.0 | Don, thanks so much for having me on your program again, Cerula. Treat to be with you and your listeners. So Haywood Hansel is a fascinating figure and that not only is he a combat commander in both Europe and the Pacific, but he's also a air pioneer and strategic thinker during the inner war period in which it's important to remember. |
| 2:45.0 | Aviation is a pretty new addition to the battlefield by the time World War II rolls around. |
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