"Proportionality Should Be A Guideline In War"

An Interview With Robert S. McNamara

The New York Times reported at the time, "Maj. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, commander of the B-29s of the entire Marianas area, declared that if the war is shortened by a single day, the attack will have served its purpose."

Precise figures are not available, but the firebombing and atomic bombing campaign against Japan, directed by LeMay between March 1945 and the Japanese surrender in August 1945, may have killed more than one million Japanese civilians. Official estimates from the United States Strategic Bombing Survey put the figures at 330,000 people killed, 476,000 injured, 8.5 million people made homeless and 2.5 million buildings destroyed. Nearly half the built-up areas of sixty-four cities were destroyed.

LeMay referred to his night-time incendiary attacks as "fire jobs." The Japanese nicknamed him "Demon LeMay". LeMay was quite aware of the Japanese opinion of him — he once remarked that had the U.S. lost the war, he fully expected to be tried for war crimes.

Presidents Roosevelt and Truman justified these extreme tactics by referring to an estimate that one million American troops would be killed if Japan had to be invaded. Additionally, the Japanese had intentionally decentralized 90% of their war-related production into small subcontractor workshops in civilian districts, making remaining Japanese war industry largely immune to conventional precision bombing with high-explosives.

The young officer who served under LeMay, Robert McNamara, was in charge of evaluating the effectiveness of American bombing missions. Later McNamara, as Secretary of Defence under Kennedy and Johnson, would often clash with LeMay.

LeMay also oversaw Operation Starvation, an aerial mining operation against Japanese waterways and ports which disrupted Japanese shipping and food distribution.

Robert S. McNamara said:

"LeMay said, 'If we had lost the war (WWII), we would have been prosecuted as War Criminals, and I think he's right...He, and I'd say I, were behaving as War Criminals...Le May recognized what he was doing would be thought of Immoral, if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose, and not immoral if you win?'"

Information On, Curtis Emerson LeMay: WikiPedia