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18 reviews for:
Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb
James M. Scott, James M. Scott
4.13 AVERAGE
18 reviews for:
Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb
James M. Scott, James M. Scott
4.13 AVERAGE
A riveting account of the strategic and logistical challenges facing LeMay in executing his firebombing campaign against Japan. Great use of Japanese sources to sketch out the ground situation too.
informative
slow-paced
Scott has written a number of dadly WW2 histories. I own and read a few, and they are consistently solid. Black Snow covers one of the more shameful moments in American military history; the campaign to obliterate Japan via firebombing during WW2.
The B-29 was the single most expensive weapon project of the war, more expensive than the Manhattan project. A solid generation ahead of the B-17s and B-24s that had devastated Germany, the B-29 was designed for high-altitude precision bombing. However, these early missions had no effect, with the jet stream scattering bombs, weather cutting out raids, and many planes lost to Japanese air defenses and accidents. The genial General Haywood Hansell, in charge of the operation, was wedded to doctrine and didn't have the guts to force a tactical change. He was dismissed and replaced with Lemay, an iron-hard veteran of Europe and the fiasco of bombing from China.
Lemay ran the numbers and switched from high altitude bombing to low-level incendiary raids. Japan's tightly packed wooden cities were tinderboxes, their night fighters lacking, and napalm cluster bombs could easily hit a target the size of a city. The results were catastrophic. The first raid killed perhaps 100,000 people in a single night. Subsequent raids killed tens of thousands. Lemay's bombers hit a city a night, limited only by the ability of the US Navy to keep shipping in incendiaries.
This book is at its best drawing from translated Japanese oral histories, a comprehensive account of survivors recorded in the 1970s. The raids were sheer horror, entire families dying by flame, smoke, heat, spontaneous combustion. Numbers can only say so much, stories of parents running from the flames, only to find their children roasted to death on their backs, say so much more. This is a hard book, and a necessary one.
Sherman was right. War is hell.
The B-29 was the single most expensive weapon project of the war, more expensive than the Manhattan project. A solid generation ahead of the B-17s and B-24s that had devastated Germany, the B-29 was designed for high-altitude precision bombing. However, these early missions had no effect, with the jet stream scattering bombs, weather cutting out raids, and many planes lost to Japanese air defenses and accidents. The genial General Haywood Hansell, in charge of the operation, was wedded to doctrine and didn't have the guts to force a tactical change. He was dismissed and replaced with Lemay, an iron-hard veteran of Europe and the fiasco of bombing from China.
Lemay ran the numbers and switched from high altitude bombing to low-level incendiary raids. Japan's tightly packed wooden cities were tinderboxes, their night fighters lacking, and napalm cluster bombs could easily hit a target the size of a city. The results were catastrophic. The first raid killed perhaps 100,000 people in a single night. Subsequent raids killed tens of thousands. Lemay's bombers hit a city a night, limited only by the ability of the US Navy to keep shipping in incendiaries.
This book is at its best drawing from translated Japanese oral histories, a comprehensive account of survivors recorded in the 1970s. The raids were sheer horror, entire families dying by flame, smoke, heat, spontaneous combustion. Numbers can only say so much, stories of parents running from the flames, only to find their children roasted to death on their backs, say so much more. This is a hard book, and a necessary one.
Sherman was right. War is hell.
Black Snow is a meticulously constructed history of the people, machinery, and events that led up to the horrific firebombing of Tokyo in 1945. The content was thoroughly researched and I enjoyed most of the audio reading, however it could be dry and tedious at times. I think this is a great book for people particularly interested in history and don’t need that extra level of entertainment/engagement that some non-fiction books incorporate. Overall, this is a straightforward recounting of a devastating part of World War II history. 3.5 Rounded up.
Thank you to NetGalley for the free audiobook in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you to NetGalley for the free audiobook in exchange for an honest review.
This was no ordinary mission – and LeMay knew it.
There’s a (very) solid argument that World War II was “good guys” versus “bad guys”, even if you want to put in some awkward caveats about the good guys (horrors of communism, holdovers of imperialism, internment camps etc).
Black Snow challenges the narrative without overthrowing it. It makes you feel uncomfortable about the actions of the US Army Airforce, while keeping an eye on the context, which elevates the book about being a straight retelling of events.
Japan Should Have Surrendered
While Black Snow does devote significant space to the preparatory matters such as leadership and the production of the B-29, I’m not overly interested in that. It’s fine, necessary even, but there’s little additional material from reading the manual Aces Of the Pacific in 1992.
What Black Snow does get across is that from November 1944, at the very latest, Japan was done:
No one was exempt from sacrifice, including the deceased. “One borrows coffins for the dead but cannot buy them,” journalist Kiyoshi Kiyosawa noted in his diary. “They are used any number of times.”
Distinct from “Britain Alone” in 1940, or the privations suffered by the Soviet Union in 1941-42, Japan was unable to protect or properly feed its people, could expect no meaningful help from friendly-aligned parties, nor do anything to remedy its strategic situation. The unrealness of Hirohito, requiring one more victory first to guarantee a better position at the bargaining table is damning.
Black Snow does not specifically say that Japan should have surrendered, but it sets out very well Japan’s inability to meaningfully resist the destruction of its cities and the suffering continued war inflicted on its people. The lack of moral courage of its leaders to accept defeat should feature in any discussion of the Tokyo Fire Bombing and subsequent campaign against Japan’s cities.
Was it a War Crime?
Black Snow shows in detail that the intent of the Tokyo Fire Bombing was to kill vast numbers of people:
Those failings left the winding Sumida River as the largest firebreak in the target area, aided only by a few smaller rivers, canals, and thoroughfares. LeMay countered this by spreading his four primary aiming spots equally across both sides of the Sumida. Residents on the ground would be trapped with nowhere to flee. “No mission in history,” Nutter marveled, “had ever been planned to create such mass devastation.”
You should not, because of one book, make a call whether the Tokyo Fire Bombing or elements of the Allies bombing campaign(s) were war crimes. Black Snow should make you uncomfortable about them though. You should read this and compare the actions with terrorist attacks such as 9/11, particularly the terrorism part. What should draw your attention is not whether the acts are morally equal, rather the ways they could be.
Black Snow does provide comparative actions by the Axis in World War II, as well as Japan’s atrocities, but Black Snow also notes that LeMay thought the Allied leaders would be “tried as war criminals” if they had lost the war over the bombings. The book also that care was taken in how information was provided to the press:
“Editorial comment beginning to wonder about blanket incendiary attacks upon cities therefore urge you continue hard hitting your present line that this destruction is necessary to eliminate Jap home industries and that it is strategic precision bombing,” the March 14 cable warned. “Guard against anyone stating that this is area bombing.”
Again, like Japan’s complicity, Black Snow does not pass any judgement on whether the Tokyo Firebombing was a war crime. It doesn’t have to – it provides plenty of information (both supportive of the case and otherwise) for a reader to consider.
This was murder.
Along with its harrowing recountings of the bombing from Japanese civilians, Black Snow makes itself necessary World War II reading by making you think – just how right were we?
There’s a (very) solid argument that World War II was “good guys” versus “bad guys”, even if you want to put in some awkward caveats about the good guys (horrors of communism, holdovers of imperialism, internment camps etc).
Black Snow challenges the narrative without overthrowing it. It makes you feel uncomfortable about the actions of the US Army Airforce, while keeping an eye on the context, which elevates the book about being a straight retelling of events.
Japan Should Have Surrendered
While Black Snow does devote significant space to the preparatory matters such as leadership and the production of the B-29, I’m not overly interested in that. It’s fine, necessary even, but there’s little additional material from reading the manual Aces Of the Pacific in 1992.
What Black Snow does get across is that from November 1944, at the very latest, Japan was done:
No one was exempt from sacrifice, including the deceased. “One borrows coffins for the dead but cannot buy them,” journalist Kiyoshi Kiyosawa noted in his diary. “They are used any number of times.”
Distinct from “Britain Alone” in 1940, or the privations suffered by the Soviet Union in 1941-42, Japan was unable to protect or properly feed its people, could expect no meaningful help from friendly-aligned parties, nor do anything to remedy its strategic situation. The unrealness of Hirohito, requiring one more victory first to guarantee a better position at the bargaining table is damning.
Black Snow does not specifically say that Japan should have surrendered, but it sets out very well Japan’s inability to meaningfully resist the destruction of its cities and the suffering continued war inflicted on its people. The lack of moral courage of its leaders to accept defeat should feature in any discussion of the Tokyo Fire Bombing and subsequent campaign against Japan’s cities.
Was it a War Crime?
Black Snow shows in detail that the intent of the Tokyo Fire Bombing was to kill vast numbers of people:
Those failings left the winding Sumida River as the largest firebreak in the target area, aided only by a few smaller rivers, canals, and thoroughfares. LeMay countered this by spreading his four primary aiming spots equally across both sides of the Sumida. Residents on the ground would be trapped with nowhere to flee. “No mission in history,” Nutter marveled, “had ever been planned to create such mass devastation.”
You should not, because of one book, make a call whether the Tokyo Fire Bombing or elements of the Allies bombing campaign(s) were war crimes. Black Snow should make you uncomfortable about them though. You should read this and compare the actions with terrorist attacks such as 9/11, particularly the terrorism part. What should draw your attention is not whether the acts are morally equal, rather the ways they could be.
Black Snow does provide comparative actions by the Axis in World War II, as well as Japan’s atrocities, but Black Snow also notes that LeMay thought the Allied leaders would be “tried as war criminals” if they had lost the war over the bombings. The book also that care was taken in how information was provided to the press:
“Editorial comment beginning to wonder about blanket incendiary attacks upon cities therefore urge you continue hard hitting your present line that this destruction is necessary to eliminate Jap home industries and that it is strategic precision bombing,” the March 14 cable warned. “Guard against anyone stating that this is area bombing.”
Again, like Japan’s complicity, Black Snow does not pass any judgement on whether the Tokyo Firebombing was a war crime. It doesn’t have to – it provides plenty of information (both supportive of the case and otherwise) for a reader to consider.
This was murder.
Along with its harrowing recountings of the bombing from Japanese civilians, Black Snow makes itself necessary World War II reading by making you think – just how right were we?
informative
medium-paced
This is a history of the American bombing of Japan, especially the B-29 and its crews. Details of both the American planning and the ground level, personal impact in Japan, especially in Tokyo. Ends with the dropping of the atomic bomb. Explores the decision making by Japanese leadership. Curtis LeMay’s leadership during the war figures prominently..
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror, Death, War
dark
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
This was no ordinary mission-and LeMay knew it.
This was murder.
Very informative book. I hadn’t been aware of the US firebombing of Tokyo.
Endnotes cite where information came from, books, materials from archives, and interviews with survivors.
Book is in 3 parts, which makes reading on the kindle very difficult since those are the only divisions in the book, whereas the print book has chapters. I found the maps very helpful as well.
Part 1 deals with the set up for the bombing, with general information about people involved in command and progress with the war. Author does an excellent job of giving enough information that I was reasonable able to keep people straight without needing to make a written list of who’s who.
Part 2 begins when LeMay takes over command of the proto air force from Hansell in the Pacific. There is a change from attempts at precision bombing of industry and military targets to incendiary bombings of cities. Rationale for this approach is given in the words of those making the decisions.
I have read Catch 22 many times but until this book didn’t understand the terror of Yossarian. Here we get descriptions of airmen and a glimpse into their lives in the war. It is tough reading.
Part 3 required me to take many breaks after chapters. It details the firebombing of Tokyo with harrowing descriptions from survivors. “Horrifying” is the best description. The five months of incendiary bombing through the dropping of the atomic bombs is detailed. We hear accounts from people in Japan, military leaders in the US, newspaper accounts in the US.
The epilogue does an excellent job of filling out what happened to key players after WW2.
Note that the book does quote sources from the 1940s and the language….and slurs…reflect that.
I’m glad I read this because I learned a lot.
It is absolutely not a light read, but it is well written and very informative.