WHAT PEARL HARBOR WROUGHT 1192 DAYS LATER: 7/8: 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
⏱️ 16 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.
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.
1945
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Once upon a time, Amazon Music met audiobooks and listeners everywhere rejoiced. |
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| 0:28.4 | listening. Terms apply. I'm John Batchel with James Scott, the author of Black Snow, Curtis Lame, the firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb. |
| 0:42.5 | The poorest sections of Tokyo are on fire in a firestorm that Tokyo has never seen before and might never actually happen again. |
| 0:51.1 | This is a unique event in human history. |
| 0:54.0 | However, back in Guam, Curtis LeMay, who launched |
| 0:57.0 | these 325 bombers, and everyone on the Marianas and also back in Washington, is waiting for results. |
| 1:05.0 | As James tells us, they expected up to 70% casualties. James, you provide a human scene, LeMay can't sleep, and he and a colleague |
| 1:15.7 | go for a couple of Coca-Cola's from his Quonson hunt. They finally get word that there's light |
| 1:22.2 | flack. What is their first understanding of the raid and how it's going? |
| 1:26.6 | You know, and LeMay is sort of always kind of this figure, you know, this sort of reserved guy, What is their first understanding of the raid and how it's going? |
| 1:35.1 | You know, and LeMay is sort of always kind of this figure, you know, this sort of reserved guy, you know, and he admits he couldn't sleep this mission. |
| 1:38.8 | And so he doesn't, he lingers in the operations center. |
| 1:41.0 | And then he's finally, he's just stressed out. |
| 1:45.2 | He knows that one way or another, his whole career is going to be defined by what happens on this night, either by disaster or success. And so it's a lot riding |
| 1:51.2 | on him. And so he does. He connects with his, the press official for the 21st bomber |
| 1:57.8 | command, who's in there kind of waiting to see what the results are so that he |
| 2:01.1 | can release the stories that reporters have put together until LeMay says, let me get you a Coke. |
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