Exactly.
I had to search back a bit in my memory. He is the American equivalent who had the US strategic bombing campaign switch from factories and military bases (legitimate war targets) to civilian population centers in Japan . With dramatically effective and deadly results.
If I recall he found out by removing most of the defensive armaments and switching to night they could lower their altitude and increase the bomb load by something like 1/3. Since they couldn’t aim properly at night they started simply targeting the densely suburban civilian centers with small, numerous incendiary devices. Carpet fire bombing.
War is hell but I still (perhaps naively) don’t think it should target civilians.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 2nd, if not 3rd, rate targets.
The better ones had already been burned out from B-29 incendiary raids.
They couldn’t hit the precision targets in the daytime with conventional bombs. High altitude prevailing winds over Japan were a big factor in that. But yet, here was this enormous investment in B-29s and crews. If memory serves, the investment was bigger than that for the Manhattan Project.
What to do?
LeMay’s answer won out.
Then how would you have persuaded Japan to surrender?
“...US strategic bombing campaign switch from factories and military bases (legitimate war targets) to civilian population centers in Japan...removing most of the defensive armaments and switching to night...increase the bomb load by something like 1/3...targeting...civilian centers with small, numerous incendiary devices. Carpet fire bombing.
War is hell but I still (perhaps naively) don’t think it should target civilians.” [Phoenix8, post 11]
So you’re unhappy the Allies beat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan back in 1945?
Japan and Germany were totalitarian nations. They dragooned their populace into their Almighty States. No civilians remained. In Japan more than any other nation, there were no purely “legitimate” targets.
Targeteers serving the Western Allies understood this. Why are you reluctant to accept it?