Black Snow

In "Black Snow," James M. Scott recounts the harrowing nighttime bombing raid on Tokyo by nearly 300 American B-29s on March 10, 1945, which unleashed a catastrophic firestorm, killing over 100,000 civilians and flattening large sections of the city. The operation, led by Major General Curtis LeMay, marked a significant moral turning point in warfare, as it represented a shift toward targeting civilian populations. Drawing from extensive interviews, air force archives, and previously unpublished oral histories, Scott provides a detailed and gripping narrative that connects this event to the broader context of World War II and the eventual atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.