WHAT PEARL HARBOR WROUGHT 1192 DAYS LATER: 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
🗓️ 9 December 2024
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
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.
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.
1941
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Once upon a time, Amazon Music met audiobooks and listeners everywhere rejoiced. |
| 0:05.8 | Oh yeah. |
| 0:06.6 | Because now they could listen to one audiobook title a month from an enormous library of popular audiobook |
| 0:12.2 | titles including Romantasy, autobiographies, true crime, and more. |
| 0:19.3 | Suddenly listeners didn't mind sitting in traffic or even missing their flight. |
| 0:23.4 | Amazon Music Unlimited now includes Audible. |
| 0:25.8 | No way. |
| 0:26.4 | Download the Amazon Music app now to start listening. |
| 0:29.2 | Terms apply. |
| 0:34.1 | This is CBS Eye on the World. |
| 0:38.3 | Here's John Batchelor. It is November 24th, 1944. |
| 0:43.3 | Brigadier General Haywood Hansel arrives in the theater of the Pacific Theater in the War against the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army. These are the last months of the Japanese Pacific War |
| 0:58.0 | fought by the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Marine Corps, and the Army Air Force. |
| 1:03.0 | General Hansel has a mission, which is to take a new weapon, |
| 1:08.0 | a very expensive weapon called the B-29, and turned it into the destruction of the |
| 1:13.4 | Japanese ability to make war. I welcome James Scott. James M. Scott is the author of the new book, |
| 1:20.7 | Black Snow, Curtis Lamey, the firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb James, greetings to you and congratulations telling the story of these months, which I'd read |
| 1:33.3 | about beginning and end, but not in between, as to how the B-29, a very buggy aircraft in addition |
| 1:41.3 | to being expensive, did not arrive as a success. |
| 1:47.0 | The early days were a challenge to the Army Air Force, to the High Command in Washington, |
| 1:54.0 | and to the men who flew the B-29. 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, 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. |
| 2:15.8 | What is his mission? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.