Retribution_ The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 - Max Hastings [205]
Take-offs were staggered between 1736 and 1930. In consequence, later crews saw the flames over Tokyo long before they reached the city. George Beck, a B-29 gunner, recorded in his diary “black, stinking clouds of smoke up to 20,000 feet.” All their commander’s hopes were fulfilled. “Suddenly, way off at about 2 o’clock, I saw a glow on the horizon like the sun rising or maybe the moon,” wrote Robert Ramer. “The whole city of Tokyo567 was below us stretching from wingtip to wingtip, ablaze in one enormous fire with yet more fountains of flame pouring down from the B-29s. The black smoke billowed up thousands of feet causing powerful thermal currents that buffeted our plane severely, bringing with it the horrible smell of burning flesh.” Although the Japanese claimed to have put 312 single-engined and 105 twin-engined fighters into the air, only forty American crews reported even glimpsing an enemy aircraft. They began bombing at 0100, and the attack continued through the succeeding three hours, unloading 496,000 incendiaries on Japan’s capital. By the time the bombers landed back in the Marianas they had been in the air fifteen hours, double the length of an average European sortie. The bellies of many aircraft were coated in soot from the fires of Tokyo. Just twelve bombers were lost, most destroyed by updrafts from the blazing city. Forty-two were damaged by flak, and two more crashed on landing. Unsurprisingly, the least experienced crews accounted for a disproportionate share of casualties.
General Arnold wrote to LeMay: “I want you and your people to understand fully my admiration for your fine work…Your recent incendiary missions were brilliantly planned and executed…Under reasonably favourable conditions you should…have the ability to destroy whole industrial cities.” Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of the new policy is that it was implemented without reference to the political leadership of the United States. When Secretary of War Henry Stimson expressed belated dismay about media reports of non-discriminatory bombing of Japanese cities, Arnold assured him mendaciously568 that urban areas had become targets only because Japanese industry was widely dispersed among the civilian population: “They were trying to keep [civilian casualties] down as much as possible.”
Stimson professed himself satisfied. He cautioned only that there must be no attacks on the ancient city of Kyoto. The further destruction of Japan and mass killing of its people was left entirely to the airmen’s discretion. There is no documentation to suggest that either Roosevelt or Truman was ever consulted about LeMay’s campaign. Here was an extreme example of the manner in which the higher direction of America’s war was left overwhelmingly in the hands of the service chiefs of staff. Here also was a precedent, establishing the context in which the later dropping of the atomic bombs was carried out—with the acquiescence of the U.S. government rather than by its formal initiative.
Comment about the Tokyo raid in the U.S. press was overwhelmingly favourable. The implausibly named Christian Century suggested that the attack had “blasted large cracks in the myth569 by which a weak and inoffensive little man had become a conquering god.” Raymond Moley in Newsweek expressed the hope that “through intensified bombing570, the panicky streak in the Japanese mentality may be set off.” No moral doubts were expressed, though many commentators acknowledged that the deliberate destruction of a city represented a new departure for the USAAF. The Twentieth Air Force clung to fig leaves, warning its senior officers: “Guard against anyone stating that this is area bombing.” A XXIst Bomber Command report