This is CBS Eye on the World. Here's John Batchelor.

James Scott, his new book is Black Snow, Curtis Lame, the firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb.

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.

James, thank you. We go to the briefing of the day is March 9th.

But you tell me in your reporting that the word was out beforehand.

How so?

What kind of word to the crews of the B-29s?

LeMay, in early March, they posted a message saying they're not going to be any more raids for

several nights. Of course, the airmen who are used to flying in these sort of patterns are

very aware that that signifies a change is coming. And so the rumor mill just starts burning

at that point. 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.

The plan is extremely detailed. However, it involves elements that are surprising when you first read them.

For example, we'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

bombing he's taking it down to 5,000 feet but no weapons James exactly no well you know lemay

orders the bombers all stripped of their guns and if they don't take guns then they don't need to

take ammunition and they don't even need to take gunners and And all of that frees up more weight for bombing. 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. And they're going to be going in at night. 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 thing for the cruise, but in the end it also had the added effect of a bonus of

allowing them to carry more bombs.

The remarks are immediate.

The one remark that says everything is suicide.

Is that the opinion of the wing commanders?

Yeah, that's the opinion.

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