“the temptation…greatness of the end”： George Slatyer Barrett, The Temptation of Christ （Edinburgh: Macniven & Wallace, 1883）， 48.
Information about the impact of the March 10, 1945, Tokyo bombing is from R. Cargill Hall, ed., Case Studies in Strategic Bombardment （Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1998）， 319, available at https://media.defense.gov/2010/Oct/12/2001330115/-1/-1/0/AFD-101012-036.pdf.
“That the more densely…‘paper and ply-board structures’”： David Fedman, “Mapping Armageddon: The Cartography of Ruin in Occupied Japan,” The Portolan 92 （Spring 2015）： 16.
“Probably more…history of man”： United States Strategic Bombing Survey, A Report on Physical Damage in Japan, June 1947, 95, available at https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/8822320.
Chapter Nine: “Improvised destruction.”
Information about LeMay’s bombing of Japan in the spring of 1945 is from C. Peter Chen, “Bombing of Tokyo and Other Cities: 19 Feb 1945–10 Aug 1945,” World War II Database, available at https://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=217.
“Our B-29s…Japan had capitulated”： Curtis E. LeMay with MacKinlay Kantor, Mission with LeMay: My Story （New York: Doubleday, 1965）， 388.
Curtis LeMay’s quotations in this chapter, unless otherwise noted, are from Reminiscences of Curtis E. LeMay: Oral History, 1971 （Air Force Academy Project, Columbia Center for Oral History, Columbia University Libraries, New York, NY）。
“What a kick…feeling fine”： J. W. Stilwell diary, September 1, 1945, quoted in Jon Thares Davidann, The Limits of Westernization: American and East Asian Intellectuals Create Modernity, 1860–1960 （New York: Taylor & Francis, 2019）， 208.
“Was it possible…enemy civilians?”： Ronald Schaffer, Wings of Judgment: American Bombing in World War II （Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1985）， 180.
“Deliberate terror bombing…hasten Hitler’s doom” and “Our policy…civilian populations”： Mark Selden, “A Forgotten Holocaust: US Bombing Strategy, the Destruction of Japanese Cities, and the American Way of War from World War II to Iraq,” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 5, no. 5 （May 2, 2007）， available at https://apjjf.org/-Mark-Selden/2414/article.html.
“We have discovered…old capital or the new”： Erik Slavin, “When the President Said Yes to the Bomb: Truman’s Diaries Reveal No Hesitation, Some Regret,” Stars and Stripes, August 5, 2015.
“It is striking…from above?”： William W. Ralph, “Improvised Destruction: Arnold, LeMay, and the Firebombing of Japan,” War in History 13, no. 4 （2006）： 517, doi:10.1177/0968344506069971.
“Bygones are bygones…our Air Self-Defense Units”： Robert Trumbull, “Honor to LeMay by Japan Stirs Parliament Debate,” New York Times, December 8, 1964, available at https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1964/12/08/99401959.html?pageNumber=15.
Information about the dispute between George C. Marshall and Ernest J. King is from Richard B. Frank, “No Recipe for Victory,” National WWII Museum, August 3, 2020, available at https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/victory-in-japan-army-navy-1945.
“In his autobiography…something he could have said”： Warren Kozak, LeMay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay （Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2009）， 341.
Conclusion: “All of a sudden, the Air House would be gone. Poof.”
Information about the United Nations protocol banning incendiary weapons is from “Protocol III to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects,” United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs Treaties Database, available at http://disarmament.un.org/treaties/t/ccwc_p3/text.
About the Author
Malcolm Gladwell is the author of six New York Times bestsellers, including Talking to Strangers, David and Goliath, Outliers, Blink, and The Tipping Point. The Bomber Mafia began as episodes of his podcast, Revisionist History, and the production team behind that show also produced the audiobook edition. Gladwell is cofounder and president of Pushkin Industries, an audiobook and podcast production company. He was born in England, grew up in rural Ontario, and now lives in New York.
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