The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are widely regarded as the decisive events that ended World War II in the Pacific. However, few people know that the US almost failed to achieve its goal of forcing Japan to surrender, even after unleashing the most terrible weapons in history. https://youtu.be/96yhS lEVXg https://youtu.be/96yhS lEVXg On August 6, 1945,…
Long Shadows of the Past - Open The Magazine openthemagazine.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from openthemagazine.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Seven minutes past midnight on March 10, 1945, nearly 300 American B-29s thundered into the skies over Tokyo. Their payloads of incendiaries ignited a firestorm that reached up to 2,800 degrees, liquefying asphalt and vaporizing thousands; sixteen square miles of the city were flattened, and more than 100,000 men, women, and children were killed.In his book, Black Snow - Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb, Charleston author James M. Scott tells the story of this devastating operation, orchestrated by Major General Curtis LeMay, who famously remarked: “If we lose the war, we’ll be tried as war criminals.”James Scott talks with Walter Edgar about the development of the B-29, the capture of the Marianas for use as airfields, and the change in strategy from high-altitude daylight “precision” bombing to low-altitude nighttime incendiary bombing. Most importantly, the raid represented a significant moral shift for America, marking the first-time
Did Making the Rules of War Better Make the World Worse? newyorker.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from newyorker.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.