Eric Schlosser - Command and Control

the Harmon Committee concluded: An abridged version of the Harmon Report — “Evaluation of Effect on Soviet War Effort Resulting from the Strategic Air Offensive” (TOP SECRET/declassified) — can be found in Etzold and Gaddis, Containment , pp. 360–64.

reduce Soviet industrial production by 30 to 40 percent: Ibid., p. 361.

kill perhaps 2.7 million civilians: Ibid., p. 362.

injure an additional 4 million: Ibid.

“For the majority of Soviet people”: Ibid.

“the only means of rapidly inflicting shock”: Ibid., pp. 363–64

The Soviets detonated their first atomic device: For the making of the Soviet bomb, see ibid. David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939–1956 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994).

The yield was about 20 kilotons: Cited in ibid., p. 218.

Each of its roughly 105,000 parts: For the extraordinary story of how the B-29 was reverse-engineered, see Van Hardesty, “Made in the U.S.S.R.,” Air & Space , March 2001; and Walter J. Boyne, “Carbon Copy,” Air Force Magazine , June 2009.

Soviet Union wouldn’t develop an atomic bomb until the late 1960s: In 1947, General Groves predicted it would take the Soviets another twenty years. See Gregg Herken, “‘A Most Deadly Illusion’: The Atomic Secret and American Nuclear Weapons Policy, 1945–1950,” Pacific Historical Review , vol. 49, no. 1 (February 1980), pp. 58, 71.

without a single military radar to search for enemy planes: See Wainstein et al., “Evolution of U.S. Command and Control,” p. 90.

twenty-three radars to guard the northeastern United States: Cited in ibid., p. 94.

a bitter, public dispute about America’s nuclear strategy: For an excellent overview of the military thinking that led not only to the “revolt of the admirals” but also to Pentagon support for a hydrogen bomb, see David Alan Rosenberg, “American Atomic Strategy and the Hydrogen Bomb Decision,” Journal of American History , vol. 66, no. 1 (June 1979), pp. 62–87. For the cultural underpinnings of the revolt, see Vincent Davis, The Admirals Lobby (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1967). And for the dispute itself, see Barlow, Revolt of the Admirals , p. 109.

“precision” tactical bombing: See John G. Norris, “Radford Statement Sparks Move for Curb Over Money Powers of Johnson,” Washington Post , October 8, 1949.

“I don’t believe in mass killings of noncombatants”: Quoted in Ibid.

“random mass slaughter”: See “Text of Admiral Ofstie’s Statement Assailing Strategic Bombing,” New York Times , October 12, 1949.

“ruthless and barbaric”: Ibid.

“We must insure that our military techniques”: Ibid.

“open rebellion”: Quoted in William S. White, “Bradley Accuses Admirals of ‘Open Rebellion’ on Unity; Asks ‘All-American Team,’” New York Times , October 20, 1949.

“Fancy Dans”: Quoted in ibid.

“aspiring martyrs”: Quoted in Hanson W. Baldwin, “Bradley Bombs Navy,” New York Times , October 20, 1949.

“As far as I am concerned”: Quoted in New York Times , “Bradley Accuses Admirals.”

“The idea of turning over custody”: Quoted in David E. Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, Volume 2, The Atomic Energy Years, 1945–1950 , (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), p. 351.

“to have some dashing lieutenant colonel decide”: Quoted in Millis and Duffield, Forrestal Diaries , p. 458.

“Destruction is just around the corner”: Quoted in Futrell, Ideas , Volume 1, p. 216.

Demobilization had left SAC a hollow force: For a book that makes that point convincingly, see Harry R. Borowski, A Hollow Threat: Strategic Air Power and Containment Before Korea (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982).

almost half of SAC’s B-29s failed to get off the ground: See Thomas M. Coffey, Iron Eagle: The Turbulent Life of General Curtis LeMay (New York: Crown, 1986), p. 271.

SAC had just twenty-six flight crews: Cited in “The View from Above: High-Level Decisions and the Soviet-American Strategic Arms Competition, 1945–1950,” Samuel R. Williamson, Jr., with the collaboration of Steven L. Reardon, Office of the Secretary of Defense, October 1975 (TOP SECRET/declassified), p. 118.

Perhaps half of these crews would be shot down: Cited in Wainstein et al., “Evolution of U.S. Command and Control,” p. 14.

An estimated thirty-five to forty-five days of preparation: See ibid., p. 18.

Lindbergh found that morale was low: See Moody, Building a Strategic Air Force , pp. 226–27.

“cut off from normal life”: The quote comes from LeMay’s memoir. Curtis E. LeMay with MacKinlay Kantor, Mission with LeMay: My Story (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965), p. 32.

a particular form of courage: American bomber crews had one of the most stressful and dangerous assignments of the Second World War. Remaining in formation meant flying directly through antiaircraft fire; breaking formation was grounds for court-martial. For the pressures of the job and the need for teamwork, see Mike Worden, Rise of the Fighter Generals: The Problem of Air Force Leadership, 1945–1982 (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1998), pp. 8–11.

more than half would be killed in action: The typical tour of duty for an American bomber crew was twenty-five missions. A study of 2,051 crew members who flew bombing missions over Europe found that 1,295 were killed or declared missing in action. The study is cited in Bernard C. Nalty, John F. Shiner, and George M. Watson, With Courage: The U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1994), p. 179.

“Japan would burn if we could get fire on it”: The prediction was made by General David A. Burchinal, who flew in one of the early firebomb attacks on Japan. Quoted in Richard H. Kohn and Joseph P. Harahan, eds., Strategic Air Warfare: An Interview with Generals Curtis E. LeMay, Leon W. Johnson, David A. Burchinal, and Jack J. Catton (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1988), p. 61.

“I’ll tell you what war is about”: Quoted in Warren Kozak, LeMay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2009), p. xi.

“We scorched and boiled and baked to death more people”: Although more Japanese were most likely killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki than in Tokyo, LeMay’s remark succinctly conveys his view of nuclear weapons. See LeMay, Mission with LeMay , p. 387.

“about the darkest night in American military aviation history”: Ibid., p. 433.

“I can’t afford to differentiate”: Quoted in Kohn and Harahan, Strategic Air Warfare , p. 98.

“Every man a coupling or a tube”: LeMay, Mission with LeMay , p. 496.

“we are at war now”: Ibid., p. 436.

San Francisco was bombed more than six hundred times: Cited in ibid.

“a single instrument: …directed, controlled”: The quote, from an article by air power theorists Colonel Jerry D. Page and Colonel Royal H. Roussel, can be found in Michael H. Armacost, The Politics of Weapons Innovation: The Thor-Jupiter Controversy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), p. 101.