by Jon Erwin
7“You go ahead and get results with the B-29”: A. J. Baime, The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), 147.
8“utter absolute complete and irreversible lack of competence”: Robert F. Dorr, Mission to Tokyo: The American Airmen Who Took the War to the Heart of Japan (St. Paul: MBI, 2012), 202.
9“After working with that man”: Gene Gurney, B-29 Superfortress: The Plane That Won the War (Morrisville, NC: Lulu Press, 2019), 150.
10“With his jowly, scowling face”: Robert M. Neer, Napalm: An American Biography (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013), 69.
11“I’m not here to win friends”: Gurney, B-29 Superfortress, 155.
12“I sat up nights”: Richard Rhodes, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 21.
13“He was around a few days, said almost nothing to anybody”: Thomas Coffey, Iron Eagle: The Turbulent Life of General Curtis LeMay (New York: Crown, 1986), 134.
14“In a war, you’ve got to try to keep at least one punch ahead”: Coffey, Iron Eagle, 163.
15“I’ll tell you what war is about”: Richard Rhodes, “The General and World War III,” New Yorker, June 12, 1995, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/06/19/the-general-and-world-war-iii.
16“so cold, hard and demanding”: Rhodes, Dark Sun, 451.
17“He was. He was sort of an autocratic bastard”: Rhodes, Dark Sun, 451.
18“I used to worry that General Power was not stable”: Scott D. Sagan, The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 150, citing Air Force Oral History interviews with Wade.
19Ed Shahinian, a B-29 gunner: Shahinian, interview, December 5, 2003, Library of Congress, American Folklife Center, Veterans History Project, https://memory.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/story/loc.natlib.afc2001001.11156/transcript?ID=sr0001.
20“I had to do something”: William Ralph, “Improvised Destruction: Arnold, LeMay, and the Firebombing of Japan,” War in History 13, no. 4 (October 2006).
21“Large sections of Japanese cities”: G. Scott Gorman, Endgame in the Pacific: Complexity, Strategy, and the B-29 (Montgomery, AL: Air University Press, 2000), 36.
22“Cities made of wood and paper”: Gorman, Endgame in the Pacific, 36.
23“If war with the Japanese does come”: Quoted in David Fromkin, In the Time of the Americans: FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Marshall, MacArthur—The Generation That Changed America’s Role in the World (New York: Vintage, 1995), 554.
24“No matter how you slice it”: Kozak, LeMay, 215.
25“Dropped in loose clusters of 14”: Lily Rothman, “Behind the World War II Fire Bombing Attack of Tokyo,” Time, March 9, 2015, https://time.com/3718981/tokyo-fire/.
26“I wish there were some other way to bring Japan’s leaders to their senses”: Wilbur Morrison, Birds from Hell: History of the B-29 (Central Point, OR: Hellgate Press, 2001), 162.
Chapter 3: Journey to the Apocalypse
1“You’re going to deliver the biggest firecracker”: Richard Rhodes, “The General and World War III,” New Yorker, June 12, 1995, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/06/19/the-general-and-world-war-iii.
2Another B-29er described the crew briefing: Robert O. Bigelow, “The Beginning of the End: The First Firebombing of Tokyo, 9–10 March 1945,” Virginia Aeronautical Historical Society, Virginia Eagles Newsletter, July 2007.
3“Looking down the long line of silver airplanes”: Bigelow, “The Beginning of the End.”
4“If I am sending these men to die, they will string me up”: Robert F. Dorr, Mission to Tokyo: The American Airmen Who Took the War to the Heart of Japan (St. Paul: MBI, 2012), 72.
5“We appeared to be floating above a pure white carpet”: Barrett Tillman, Whirlwind: The Air War Against Japan, 1942–1945 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 120.
6“Amid the hours of tedious routine”: Tillman, Whirlwind, 81.
7“A lot could go wrong”: Donald L. Miller, D-Days in the Pacific (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 227.
8LeMay drank from a six-ounce bottle of Coca-Cola: Dorr, Mission to Tokyo, 140.
9“Their long, glinting wings, sharp as blades”: Michael S. Sherry, The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987), 274.
10“Poor bastards”: Wilbur Morrison, Birds from Hell: History of the B-29 (Central Point, OR: Hellgate Press, 2001), 163.
11“We looked upon a ghastly scene”: Kenneth P. Werrell, Blankets of Fire: U.S. Bombers over Japan During World War II (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996), 161.
12“When we got over the target it was like a thousand Christmas trees”: Austin Hoyt, producer, American Experience: Victory in the Pacific, PBS, 2005.
13“Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” “My Old Flame,” and “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire”: Robert M. Neer, Napalm: An American Biography (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013), 80.
14“From my front-row seat in the nose”: David Venditta, “Hellertown High Grad Flew on Tokyo Firebomb Raid,” Morning Call (Allentown, PA), March 7, 2015, https://www.mcall.com/news/local/bethlehem/mc-tokyo-firebombing-anniversary-manone-20150307-story.html.
15“Hundreds of B-29s were all in the same general area”: Charles L. Phillips Jr., Rain of Fire: B-29s over Japan (Moreno Valley, CA: Nijuku Publishing, 1995).
16“As we approached, the conflagration was such”: Phillips, Rain of Fire.
17“It almost cost us our life”: Phillips, Rain of Fire.
18“Bright flashes illuminate the sky’s shadows”: Tillman, Whirlwind, 148.
19“The heat from the conflagration”: John W. Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon, 1986), 41.
20“Other B-29s around us were outlined in orange”: Neer, Napalm, 81.
21Saotome Katsumoto, Ishikawa Koyo, Hashimoto Yoshiko, and Kokubo Takako quotes: Saotome Katsumoto and Richard Sams, “Saotome Katsumoto and the Firebombing of Tokyo: Introducing the Great Tokyo Air Raid,” The Asia-Pacific Journal 13, no. 1, March 9, 2015, https://apjjf.org/2015/13/9/Saotome-Katsumoto/4293.html.
22“They came in majesty”: Warren Kozak, LeMay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2011), 224.
23“I could hear the sound of houses burning”: John Burgess, “The Night the War Came Home to Tokyo,” Washington Post, March 10, 1985, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1985/03/10/the-night-the-war-came-home-to-tokyo/ee04329b-4f79-449d-9803-a3fffbe5948b/.
24“seized by the firestorm, whipped and twisted in the air”: Neer, Napalm, 79.
25“like a cascade of silvery water”: Sherry, Rise of American Air Power, 274.
26“We were caught between the people pushing us”: Katsumoto and Sams, “Saotome Katsumoto and the Firebombing of Tokyo.”
27“On a bridge spanning the Kototoi River”: Neer, Napalm, 81.
28“A fully developed firestorm is a horrifically mesmerizing sight”: Tillman, Whirlwind, 141.
29“fire-winds filled with burning particles”: Bill Gilbert, Air Power: Heroes and Heroism in American Flight Missions (New York: Citadel Press, 2004), 120.
30“sadistic goons, especially picked for their brutality”: Fiske Hanley II, Accused American War Criminal (Brattleboro, VT: Echo Point, 2016), ix.
31“Bombs away—General conflagration”: Gene Gurney, B-29 Superfortress: The Plane That Won the War (Morrisville, NC: Lulu Press, 2019), 161.
32“It was a hell of a good mission”: Thomas Coffey, Iron Eagle: The Turbulent Life of General Curtis LeMay (New York: Crown, 1986), 164.
33“Congratulations. This mission shows your crews have the guts”: Neer, Napalm, 82.
34“That fire raid was the most destructive single military action”: Sarel Eimerl, The American Heritage History of Flight (New York: Golden Press, 1964), 3
66.
35“because of the horrifying conditions beyond imagination”: Waldo H. Heinrichs and Marc S. Gallicchio, Implacable Foes: War in the Pacific, 1944–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 284. Estimates of the total number of people, mostly civilians, who died in Tokyo air raids from November 24, 1944, until the March 9–10, 1945, raid range from a low of 1,300 to a high of 2,525.
36“The great city of Tokyo—third largest in the world”: Dorr, Mission to Tokyo, 317.
37“Neither the Army nor the Navy can possibly draw up a plan”: John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936–1945 (New York: Random House, 2014), 446.
38“never considered as to whether I was killing”: Shahinian, interview, December 5, 2003, Library of Congress, American Folklife Center, Veterans History Project, https://memory.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/story/loc.natlib.afc2001001.11156/transcript?ID=sr0001.
39“I’m sort of a religious person”: Austin Hoyt, producer, American Experience: Victory in the Pacific, PBS, 2005.
40“one of the most ruthless and barbaric killings of noncombatants”: John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: Norton, 1999), 285.
41“scorched and boiled and baked to death”: Kyoko Selden and Mark Selden, The Atomic Bomb: Voices from Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1990), xxvii.
42“Killing Japanese didn’t bother me very much”: Richard Rhodes, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 21.
43“a child lying in bed with a whole ton of masonry”: E. Bartlett Kerr, Flames over Tokyo: The U.S. Army Air Forces’ Incendiary Campaign Against Japan, 1944–1945 (New York: D. I. Fine, 1991), 154.
44“Once the war started like that”: “Family,” The War, PBS, 2007, https://www.pbs.org/thewar/at_home_family.htm.
45“Following that war was the best history lesson”: “Family,” The War, PBS.
46“There was a sense of urgency”: “Family,” The War, PBS.
47“became proficient cooks and housekeepers, managed the finances”: Stephen E. Ambrose, Americans at War (New York: Berkley, 1998), 145.
48“I think for girls and women”: Sharon H. Hartman Strom and Linda P. Wood, “Women and World War II,” What Did You Do in the War, Grandma? An Oral History of Rhode Island Women During World War II, 1995, http://cds.library.brown.edu/projects/WWII_Women/WomenInWWII.html. Note: During this period, the City of Los Angeles also took part in bombing missions against Nagoya, Tokyo, Osaka, and Kobe. On March 30–31, the aircraft took part in a mass attack by 137 B-29s against the Tachiarai machine works and Omura Airfield on Kyushu Island, in which 49 tons of bombs were dropped on the target area and fourteen enemy aircraft were shot down. The crew of the City of Los Angeles and the crews of the other B-29s were awarded the Distinguished Unit Citation for the mission.
Chapter 4: Day of Destiny
1Red Erwin’s burn injuries: Seventy-five years after the phosphorus bomb exploded inside Red’s B-29, a team of leading burn doctors and specialists in military injuries examined the available evidence, details, and photos of Red’s wounds, and compared them to their own surgical experience and research. In total, these doctors had treated thousands of military and civilian burn victims and conducted extensive research into white phosphorus burns. Through their opinions and observations, a compelling picture emerges of what was happening to Red’s body during these desperate hours inside the City of Los Angeles and in the months beyond. The medical details in this chapter are based on interviews with these medical experts.
2“There’s no other injury that has such a devastating effect”: Joan Hollobon, “Burn Centre: Helping Body’s Largest Organ to Rebuild Infection Shield,” Globe and Mail, May 14, 1984.
Chapter 5: Race Against Time
1“When skin, an organ about as thick as a sheet of paper toweling”: Douglas Hand, “Saving Burn Victims,” New York Times, September 15, 1985, https://www.nytimes.com/1985/09/15/magazine/saving-burn-victims.html.
2“He discarded the accepted approach”: Kat Eschner, “Three Medical Breakthroughs That Can Be Traced Back to a Tragic Nightclub Fire,” Smithsonian, November 28, 2017, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/three-medical-breakthroughs-can-be-traced-back-tragic-cocoanut-grove-fire-180967323/#OJiUBfRr5Zp9YWMA.99.
3“a sullen sense of evil”: “Island Seemed Like a Beachhead on Hell,” Life, April 9, 1945.
4They were accompanied by shiploads of ammunition and supplies: Sid Moody, “It Was the Bloodiest Battle of the Pacific During World War,” Associated Press, January 30, 1995.
5“the last country in the world that Japan should fight”: William B. Hopkins, The Pacific War: The Strategy, Politics, and Players That Won the War (Beverly, MA: Voyageur, 2010), 292.
6“Mortars fell in cascade from hundreds of concealed pits”: Bill D. Ross, Iwo Jima: Legacy of Valor (New York: Vanguard Press, 1985), 67.
7Quotes by Col. Frank Caldwell: Ken Ringle, “The Uphill Battle,” Washington Post, February 19, 1995, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1995/02/19/the-uphill-battle/f5265c77-b6fc-42cd-b2e1-eea6ca4d4677/.
8“Iwo Jima can only be described as a nightmare”: Richard F. Newcomb, Iwo Jima: The Dramatic Account of the Epic Battle That Turned the Tide of World War II (New York: Henry Holt, 1965), 136.
9“uncommon valor was a common virtue”: James H. Hallas, Uncommon Valor on Iwo Jima: The Stories of the Medal of Honor Recipients in the Marine Corps’ Bloodiest Battle of World War II (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), xiii. Note: Red Erwin was probably treated by recently arrived army medical staff at Iwo Jima. According to US Marine Corps veteran and historian John Butler in an email to the authors, “By April 12 the Marines and their corpsmen had left the island. US forces on Iwo at that time were 147th US Infantry Regiment and two squadrons of US Army Air Corps P-51s, plus likely other US Army support troops, including US Army doctors and medics.”
10“the most savage and the most costly battle”: Holland McTyeire Smith and Percy Finch, Coral and Brass (Morrisville, NC: Lulu Press, 2017), 236.
11“Of the 2,251 touchdowns popularized”: Robert S. Burrell, The Ghosts of Iwo Jima (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2011), 124.
12Story of Patton’s prayer: James H. O’Neill, “The True Story of the Patton Prayer,” Review of the News, October 6, 1971, http://pattonhq.com/prayer.html.
13“conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity”: US Department of Defense, “Description of Medals,” https://valor.defense.gov/Description-of-Awards.
14“to be bestowed upon such petty officers, seamen, landsmen, and Marines”: “National Archives Exhibit Highlights Medal of Honor Recipients,” National Archives Press Release, April 4, 2005, https://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2005/nr05-52.html.
15“A gold five-pointed star”: Defense Standardization Program Office, “Medal of Honor History,” Nebraska Medal of Honor Foundation, https://nebraskamedalofhonorfoundation.org/history/.
16“Some talked of entering a zone of slow-motion invulnerability”: Peter Collier, “American Honor,” Wall Street Journal, May 26, 2007, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118014402282815483.
17“When you’re in a combat situation”: Quoted in “Book Profiles US Medal of Honor Winners,” Voice of America News, October 30, 2009, https://www.voanews.com/archive/book-profiles-us-medal-honor-winners-2003-11-11.
18Dear God, please let me get just one more man: Collier, “American Honor.”
19“For those who earn it, the medal is a loaded gift”: Michael Phillips, “‘It’s a Lifelong Burden’: The Mixed Blessing of the Medal of Honor,” Wall Street Journal, May 24, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/its-a-lifelong-burden-the-mixed-blessing-of-the-medal-of-honor-11558695600.
20“I cannot eat them”: Eric Grossarth, “We Are East Idaho: Sugar City,” EastIdahoNews.com.
21“I look at that medal and I could throw up”: Jeff Schogol, “Dakota Meyer Explains Why He Hates His Medal of Honor
,” Business Insider, March 29, 2019, https://www.businessinsider.com/dakota-meyer-explains-why-he-hates-his-medal-of-honor-2019-3.
Chapter 6: The Gates of Eternity
1“I have a terrific pain in the back of my head”: Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 602.
2“Jesus Christ and General Jackson!”: David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 424.
3“Harry, the president is dead”: David Oshinsky, “The Strength of His Weakness,” New York Times, October 29, 1995, https://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/29/books/the-strength-of-his-weaknesses.html.
4“I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets”: Bert Cochran, Harry Truman and the Crisis Presidency (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1973), 118.
5“I was handicapped by lack of knowledge”: Jeffrey Frank, “How FDR’s Death Changed the Vice-Presidency,” New Yorker, April 17, 2015.
6Truman later privately asserted: Cochran, Harry Truman and the Crisis Presidency, 120; Alonzo L. Hamby, Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 313.
7“Truman probably had the human touch”: William J. Hopkins, “Oral History Interview,” JFK #1, June 3, 1964, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKOH/Hopkins%2C%20William%20J/JFKOH-WIJH-01/JFKOH-WIJH-01.
8“Each and every one of us”: William Doyle, Inside the Oval Office: The White House Tapes from FDR to Clinton (New York: Kodansha, 1999), 58.