The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara Page #7

The B-29 could get above the fighter

aircraft and above the air defense...

...so the loss rate would be much less.

The problem was, the accuracy

was also much less.

Now, I don't want to suggest

that it was my report...

...that led to...

I'll call it the firebombing.

It isn't that I'm absolving myself

of blame for the firebombing.

I don't want to suggest that it was I...

...that put in LeMay's mind...

...that his operations

were totally inefficient...

...and had to be drastically changed.

But, anyhow, that's what he did.

He took the B-29s down to 5000 feet...

...and he decided to bomb with firebombs.

I participated in the interrogation...

...of the B-29 bomber crews

that came back that night.

A room full of crewmen

and intelligence interrogators.

A captain got up,

a young captain said:

'Goddamn it, I'd like to know who

the son of a b*tch was...

...that took this magnificent airplane,

designed to bomb from 23,000 feet...

...and he took it down to 5000 feet,

and I lost my wingman.

He was shot and killed.'

LeMay spoke in monosyllables.

I never heard him say...

...more than two words in sequence.

It was basically, 'Yes,' ' No,' 'Yep'...

...'That's all,' or ' Hell with it.'

That was all he said.

And LeMay was totally intolerant of criticism.

He never engaged in discussion with anybody.

He stood up.

'Why are we here?

Why are we here?

You lost your wingman.

It hurts me as much as...

...it does you.

I sent him there.

And I've been there,

I know what it is.

But you lost one wingman...

...and we destroyed Tokyo.'

Fifty square miles of Tokyo were burned.

Tokyo was a wooden city,

and when we dropped firebombs...

...it just burned it.

The choice of incendiary bombs...

... where did that come from?

I think the issue...

...is not so much incendiary bombs.

I think the issue is...

...in order to win, should you kill

By firebombing or any other way?

LeMay's answer would be,

clearly, 'Yes.'

' McNamara, do you mean to say...

...that instead of killing 100,000...

...burning to death 100,000 Japanese

civilians in that one night...

...we should have burned to death

a lesser number or none?

And then had our soldiers

cross the beaches in Tokyo...

...and been slaughtered in tens of thousands?

Is that what you're proposing?

Is that moral? Is that wise?'

Why was it necessary to drop

the nuclear bomb...

...if LeMay was burning up Japan?

And he went on from Tokyo

to firebomb other cities.

is roughly the size of Cleveland.

Tokyo is roughly the size of New York.

of Chattanooga, which was Toyama.

of Los Angeles, which was Nagoya.

This was all done before...

...the dropping of the nuclear bomb.

Which, by the way, was dropped

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