steve on Nostr: “Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic ...
“Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb” by James M. Scott
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It is often overlooked that the firebombing of Japan caused more widespread destruction and death than both atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Behind this decimation was a flawed theory that stretched back to the beginnings of air power: the strategic bombing of a population could force their government to capitulate. Scott explores these events and the theory behind them through the perspective of its champion during WWI, General Curtis Lemay. Having been reassigned from the European front to turn around a floundering 20th Bomber Command, Lemay took charge and turned the 20th into an efficient killing machine aimed at ending the war with Japan as soon as possible. Pressured from politicians in DC and facing heavy Allied casualties, Lemay pioneered the use of firebombing to reduce well over 100 square-miles of Japanese cityscape to ash (this of course, came before the nukes). This is a necessarily graphic story that highlights the depths of flawed strategic thinking that ties the reader from past to present. After reading this book, ask yourself: what would you do in the same situation? 🗾🔥
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
It is often overlooked that the firebombing of Japan caused more widespread destruction and death than both atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Behind this decimation was a flawed theory that stretched back to the beginnings of air power: the strategic bombing of a population could force their government to capitulate. Scott explores these events and the theory behind them through the perspective of its champion during WWI, General Curtis Lemay. Having been reassigned from the European front to turn around a floundering 20th Bomber Command, Lemay took charge and turned the 20th into an efficient killing machine aimed at ending the war with Japan as soon as possible. Pressured from politicians in DC and facing heavy Allied casualties, Lemay pioneered the use of firebombing to reduce well over 100 square-miles of Japanese cityscape to ash (this of course, came before the nukes). This is a necessarily graphic story that highlights the depths of flawed strategic thinking that ties the reader from past to present. After reading this book, ask yourself: what would you do in the same situation? 🗾🔥