Warren Kozak has a great piece in the Journal on the man who “ordered the deaths of more civilians than any other man in U.S. history.” Most of our readers are probably pretty familiar with LeMay’s achievements, but since the left hasn’t yet dragged LeMay’s name through the mud in this latest round of America-bashing…
On the night of March 9, 1945, LeMay sent 346 huge B-29 bombers loaded with napalm from the Mariana Islands (Guam, Saipan and Tinian) to Tokyo. The first planes dropped their incendiaries on the front and back of the target area — like lighting up both ends of a football field at night. The rest of the planes filled in the middle. More than 16 square miles of Japan’s capital city were gutted, two million people were left homeless, and 100,000 were dead. It didn’t end there. Washington gave LeMay the green light as his bombers burned 64 more cities. He used the World Almanac and just went down the list by population. Altogether, an estimated 350,000 people lost their lives.
Of course, we now know that FDR had accepted a false choice between our ideals and our security when he gave LeMay the go-ahead for the fire-bombing of Tokyo, but lives were saved — American and Japanese. And “no American with a husband, brother or son serving in the military” questioned the methods. Kozak has a book coming out titled “LeMay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay.” Sounds like excellent beach reading.
