The generals began to talk about the B-2 bomber—the Stealth Bomber—the modern-day Air Force’s equivalent of Curtis LeMay’s B-29. But this time, with the power to come out of nowhere, undetectable.
One general said, “So in essence, [in] Fort Myer, where we’re sitting today: you could take the eighty targets you want, and so from above forty thousand feet without seeing it, without [the bomber’s] being on your radar, those just go away.” I asked whether we would be able to hear the bomber’s approach. The reply: “You don’t. It’s too high. You don’t hear it.”
We would all be sitting in our deck chairs in the backyard, and we would look up, and all of a sudden, the Air House—or maybe even some specific part of the Air House—would be gone. Poof.
High-altitude precision bombing.
Curtis LeMay won the battle. Haywood Hansell won the war.
Footnotes
i LeMay took over as head of the Strategic Air Command in 1948. As historian Richard Kohn notes, “General LeMay, more than any other figure, shaped the Strategic Air Command （SAC） during its formative years under his command （1948–57）。” In 1961, LeMay rose even higher when President Kennedy made him Air Force chief of staff.
ii On January 21, 2009, the day after his inauguration, President Obama signed a United Nations protocol banning the use of incendiary weapons. As of this writing, 115 nations have signed the disarmament treaty, first introduced in 1981.
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Acknowledgments
The Bomber Mafia had an unusual birth, because it began its literary life as an audiobook and then was transformed into print. Most books have the opposite trajectory. So my thanks begin with the team at Pushkin Industries who helped me create this book in its original form: Brendan Francis Newnam and Jasmine Faustino, who oversee Pushkin Audiobooks; my editor, Julia Barton; my producers, Jacob Smith and Eloise Lynton; my fact-checker, Amy Gaines; composer Luis Guerra; and sound and engineering wizards Flawn Williams and Martín H. Gonzalez. Thanks also to researchers past and present, including Camille Baptista, Stephanie Daniel, Beth Johnson, and Xiomara Martinez-White—not to mention Heather Fain, Carly Migliori, and Mia Lobel.
The crew at Little, Brown, who has been my publisher since the very beginning of my book-writing career, then took over from the audiobook team at Pushkin. I’m grateful to the following people at Little, Brown for their help in making The Bomber Mafia into a printed book and ebook: Bruce Nichols, Terry Adams, Massey Barner, Pam Brown, Judy Clain, Barbara Clark, Sean Ford, Elizabeth Garriga, Evan Hansen-Bundy, Pat Jalbert-Levine, Gregg Kulick, Miya Kumangai, Laura Mamelok, Asya Muchnick, Mario Pulice, Mary Tondorf-Dick, and Craig Young.
And last but not least, both General David L. Goldfein and General Charles Q. Brown Jr., the twenty-first and twenty-second chiefs of staff of the Air Force, respectively, were immensely generous in giving me guidance and access to the Air Force archives and the historians at Air University.
While I was in the middle of writing this book, General Goldfein retired and was replaced by General Brown. I watched the ceremony online. Everyone from the secretary of defense to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—all the way on down—spoke. In the middle of one of the most tumultuous and uncertain summers in recent American history, the changeover ceremony was a model of grace, decorum, and gravitas. The original Bomber Mafia helped build one of the truly great American institutions. Their influence has not ended.
Notes
Quotations from the following sources were taken from author interviews:
Tami Biddle
Conrad Crane
David Goldfein
Robert Hershberg
Ken Israel
Richard Kohn
John M. Lewis
Stephen L. McFarland
Richard Muller
Robert Neer
Robert Pape
Introduction: “This isn’t working. You’re out.”
“With 2,200…have to do” and “B-29s on Saipan…its first target”： William Keighley, dir., Target Tokyo （Culver City, CA: Army Air Forces First Motion Picture Unit, 1945）， available at https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pacific-target-tokyo/.
“I wonder if…period of years”： Sir Arthur Harris, Bomber Offensive （London: Collins, 1947; Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword, 2005）， 72–73. Citations refer to the Pen & Sword edition.
“I thought the earth…crushed” and “Old pilots…away-y-y-y”： Charles Griffith, The Quest: Haywood Hansell and American Strategic Bombing in World War II （Montgomery, AL: Air University Press, 1999）， 189, 196.