James M. Scott has a glowing reputation among Pacific War historians and his books include definitive accounts of the Doolittle Raid and the Battle of Manila. In Black Snow, Scott turns to the United States’ bombing campaign against Japan in 1945.
The cast includes Army Air Forces chief Henry “Hap” Arnold; 21st Bomber Command leader Haywood Hansell; and Hansell’s replacement, Curtis LeMay. Scott provides background to the Boeing B-29 Superfortress program and explains how Arnold drove to get the world’s most advanced bomber into combat—prematurely, as it turns out—and how Hansell in the Marianas led faltering attempts to deploy the B-29 against Japan. Waiting in the wings was the hard-driving LeMay, arguably the finest airman of his generation and an absolute master of his trade: flying, navigating and bombing. Arnold, dissatisfied with B-29 operations out of India and China in mid-1944, sent LeMay there to take over. Then, in January 1945, LeMay received orders to assume command of Hansell’s Marianas operation.
After trial missions bombing Japan with incendiaries, LeMay shifted tactics. Instead of pursuing Hansell’s doctrinaire daylight high-altitude “precision” bombing against factories, LeMay gambled on a night strike by B-29s loaded with incendiaries and flying at only 5,000 to 7,000 feet. On the night of March 9,
