13-03-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
‘Rain of Ruin' Review: Fire From the Skies
Of the lingering controversies of World War II, perhaps the most intensely debated is America's bombing of Japan's cities. The two most dramatic forms—the firebombing raids in the spring of 1945, which killed more than a quarter-million civilians, and the better-known atomic bombings that summer—pitted morality against necessity as both sides groped for a way to end the war on acceptable terms.
The air campaigns have been covered from many angles in recent books. Malcolm Gladwell's 'The Bomber Mafia' (2021) focuses on the apostles of strategic bombing, notably Maj. Gen. Curtis LeMay, the chief architect of the firebombings. James M. Scott's brilliant 'Black Snow' (2022) balances America's drive to end the war against heartrending stories of ordinary Japanese citizens caught in the bombsights. Max Hastings's 'Retribution' (2007) frames the bombings in the context of the wider war for Asia.
In 'Rain of Ruin' Richard Overy, a British historian whose books include 'The Dictators' (2004), distills the atomic bombing campaign—and its precursor, the incendiary strikes—into a single moral issue. As he writes, 'The question asked is usually 'was it necessary?'; the question, however, should really be 'why was it thought to be necessary at the time?''
The strategy of scorching densely populated cities wasn't the initiative of a single, bloody-minded general of the Strangelove stripe. 'Area bombing' of urban centers—a shift from pinpoint bombing of factories and military targets—had been studied by the U.S. Army Air Forces since 1943. The Office of Strategic Services analyzed Japan's urban demographics to find areas most vulnerable to fire. Air Forces analysts dissected the results of Britain's carpet bombing of German cities, and a replica village of typical Japanese homes was erected in a Utah desert to test the effects of napalm attacks.
