Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Taking the Offensive
incendiaries large portions of the Japanese dock and storage areas along the
Yangtze River in Hankow. In that raid, the B-29s arrived over the target in four
distinct groups, each carrying a different type of incendiary bomb, as if to test
which was best. Confusion in scheduling and as a result of heavy smoke raised
by the first bombs dropped caused several sections of aircraft to miss their
targets, considerably diminishing the effectiveness of the raid. Nevertheless,
riverfront buildings and some other Chinese-occupied parts of the city suffered
extensive damage. Interviewed twenty years after the war, LeMay took only
partial credit for the decision to use incendiaries on Japanese cities in 1945,
saying it was a “combination of several people’s ideas.’’9s
Brig. Gen. Lauris Norstad, serving in Washington as Twentieth Air Force’s
chief of staff, seems to have been one of those to whom LeMay referred, a key
player in the evolution of the firebombing decision. Norstad’s position made
him the intermediary, not only between the ever-impatient Arnold and his
proxies in the Pacific-first Hansell and then LeMay-but also between the
A-2, the JTG, and the operational commanders. Relying on the A-2’s and
COA’s analyses and the plans for the Twentieth that envisioned urban-area
attacks as a last resort, Norstad had agitated for incendiary bombing since
November. The apparent success at Hankow fortified his position. Pushed by
Norstad toward a fire raid on Nagoya, Hansell objected that the tactic was
inappropriate and not compatible with the mission of “destruction of primary
targets by sustained air attacks using precision bombing methods both visual
and radar.” Hansell’s case was not strong; he still lacked the intelligence needed
to locate enough primary targets to bring the Japanese to conclude the war.
Norstad relented temporarily, but he continued to discuss the matter with
Brig. Gen. Lauris Norstad
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