Join us for award-winning military historian James Scott's online presentation about the March 1945 firebombing of Tokyo and its historical significance.

WHAT: An online talk by James M. Scott about his book Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb, followed by QA, jointly organized by RASBJ and the History Club of RAS China in Shanghai.

WHEN: Thursday, Dec. 1, 2022 from 8:00-9:00 PM Beijing time

MORE ABOUT THE EVENT: Seven minutes past midnight on March 10, 1945, nearly 300 American B-29s thundered into the skies over Tokyo. Their payloads of incendiaries ignited a firestorm that reached up to 2,800 degrees, liquefying asphalt and vaporizing thousands. Sixteen square miles of the city were flattened, and more than 100,000 men, women and children were killed.

Black Snow is the story of this devastating operation, orchestrated by Major General Curtis LeMay, who famously remarked: "If we lose the war, we'll be tried as war criminals." Scott reconstructs in granular detail that horrific night, and describes the development of the B-29, the capture of the Marianas for use as airfields, and the change in strategy from high-altitude "precision" bombing to low-altitude nighttime incendiary bombing.

Most of all, the attack represented a significant moral shift for America, marking the first time commanders deliberately targeted civilians, which helped pave the way for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki five months later. The author's presentation, jointly organized by RASBJ and the RAS in Shanghai, draws on first-person interviews with American pilots and bombardiers plus accounts of Japanese survivors, archives and oral histories never before published in English. The book is available at https://www.amazon.com/Black-Snow-Curtis-Firebombing-Atomic/dp/1324002999​

MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A former Nieman Fellow at Harvard, James M. Scott is also the author of Rampage, which was named one of the Best Books of 2018 by the editors at Amazon, Kirkus, and Military Times and was chosen as a finalist for the prestigious Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History by the New York Historical Society. His other works include Target Tokyo, a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist, The War Below, and The Attack on the Liberty which won the Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison Award.

HOW MUCH: This online event is free for members of RASBJ, RAS China in Shanghai, and other partner RAS branches; RMB 100 for non-members. Interested in becoming an RASBJ member? Please sign up at https://rasbj.org/membership/

HOW TO JOIN THE EVENT: Please click "Register" or "I Will Attend" and follow the instructions. After successful registration you'll receive a confirmation email with a link to join the event. If you seem not to have received it, please check your spam folder. Members of partner RAS branches: Please register at least 72 hours in advance to allow time for membership verification. You will receive two emails from us, the first confirming receipt of your registration request and the second confirming your registration, with a link to join the event. Please check your spam folder to ensure you see all RASBJ emails.