The Day We Lost the H-Bomb: Cold War, Hot Nukes, and the Worst Nuclear Weapons Disaster in History

Strategic bombing can be a bit hard to distinguish from tactical bombing, because the two often overlap. But in general it means dropping bombs on key bits of enemy infrastructure — oil refineries, engine plants, important bridges — that aren't directly involved in a current battle but greatly affect the enemy's ability to fight. In 1921, an Italian general named Giulio Douhet first defined strategic bombing in his book The Command of the Air. Douhet's idea gained popularity between World War I and World War II but faced some resistance. For Douhet, strategic bombing meant that an entire country was fair game; planes could target hospitals and food depots as legitimately as airstrips and factories. There were few safe havens, no noncombatants. Bombing city centers could crush the will of the civilian population, argued Douhet, forcing enemy leaders to surrender quickly and leading to less bloodshed in the end. American airmen, wary of civilian casualties, advocated bombing specific targets to disable the enemy's economy. Even so, critics called such tactics uncivilized, immoral, and un-American. Outside airpower circles, the idea fizzled.

Then came World War II, and the Army Air Forces saw their chance. They argued for the opportunity to bomb German train yards and oil refineries, and they got it. And it was true that the airplanes offered something that Navy ships and Army tanks couldn't: only airborne bombers could fly deep into Germany, destroy German factories, and break the German war machine. That is, if the bombers could actually get to Germany and manage to hit anything.

In the early days of World War II, an assignment to a bomber crew was nearly a death sentence. The lumbering B-17 Stratofortresses flew in large, rigid formations, easy targets for enemy fighters and flak. Bombers flying from England to Germany sometimes had fighter escorts, but the fighters had such a short range that they usually turned back at the border of Germany, leaving the bombers to face the most risky portion of the journey alone. Bomber groups sometimes lost half — or more — of their planes on raids over Germany. In one infamous circumstance, the 100th Bomber Group lost seven planes over Bremen on October 8, 1943. Two days later, it lost twelve of its remaining thirteen planes over Munster. Bomber crews were more likely than foot soldiers to be killed, wounded, or captured. Twice as many air officers died in combat as those on the ground, despite their smaller numbers. An airman in a World War II bomber had a shorter life expectancy than an infantryman in the trenches of World War I.

After reading accounts of air battles, such statistics seem less surprising. On August 17, 1943, German fighters attacked a division of American B-17 bombers over Belgium. An observer in one of the rear planes later described the battle:

A stricken B-17 fell gradually out of formation to the right, then moments later disintegrated in one giant explosion. As the fighters kept pressing their attacks, one plane after another felt their fury.

Engine parts, wing tips, even tail assemblies were blasted free. Rearward planes had to fly through showers of exit doors, emergency hatches, sheets of metal, partially opened parachutes, and other debris, in addition to human bodies, some German, some American, some dead, some still alive and writhing. As more German fighters arrived and the battle intensified, there were so many disintegrating airplanes that “sixty 'chutes in the air at one time was hardly worth a second look.” A man crawled out of the copilot's window of a Fortress engulfed in flames. He was the only person to emerge. Standing precariously on the wing, he reached back inside for his parachute — he could hardly have gotten through the window with his chute on — used one hand to get into the harness while he clung to the plane with the other, then dove off the wing for an apparently safe descent, only to be hit by the plane's onrushing horizontal stabilizer. His chute did not open.

The passage comes from Iron Eagle, Thomas Coffey's biography of Curtis LeMay. LeMay, head of the 4th Bombardment Wing in England at the time, flew in the lead bomber. Until his superiors forbade it, LeMay often accompanied his men on bombing missions, a habit that inspired deep trust and loyalty among his flyers. LeMay also inspired fear, or at least trepidation. Stocky, square-jawed, and perpetually chewing a cigar, he was a tough guy who looked the part. He scowled often and spoke little. Decades after the war, LeMay's gruff demeanor and blunt, often tactless public statements would make him the object of widespread derision and caricature. But here, in World War II, he was in his element. He got things done.

LeMay hated the thought of being unprepared, of losing men and bombers because of poor training or sloppy mistakes. When he arrived in England, he was alarmed by the rabble the Army gave him