WEBVTT - Bombs-Away LeMay 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:15.796 Pushkin. 0:00:20.316 --> 0:00:23.276 Curtis Emerson LeMay, who for the better part of twenty 0:00:23.276 --> 0:00:25.996 five years dominated the greatest fighting force the world had 0:00:25.996 --> 0:00:31.276 ever known, had three nicknames, Old Iron Pants, the Demon, 0:00:32.196 --> 0:00:38.716 and bombs Away LeMay. He was not that category of 0:00:38.796 --> 0:00:42.316 leader who led by force of wit, charm and charisma. 0:00:42.716 --> 0:00:45.076 Nor was he some great thinker, the kind of leader 0:00:45.116 --> 0:00:50.076 whose appeal lies with carefully thought out manifestos and elaborate ideologies. 0:00:50.756 --> 0:00:52.556 Le Maay never took his cigar out of his mouth 0:00:52.596 --> 0:00:56.516 long enough to say anything. He belonged to a different category, 0:00:57.116 --> 0:00:58.556 the one that gets overlooked. 0:00:59.156 --> 0:01:01.876 Curtis LeMay. In my view, he was the greatest air 0:01:01.916 --> 0:01:03.116 commander in history. 0:01:03.716 --> 0:01:07.236 I'm talking to the military historian Conrad Crane. No historian 0:01:07.276 --> 0:01:10.396 writes about the Second World War out considering the legacy 0:01:10.396 --> 0:01:10.836 of LeMay. 0:01:11.236 --> 0:01:15.436 Everything he touched he transformed. He was a dynamic leader. 0:01:15.476 --> 0:01:18.956 He shared the difficulties of his airman. He was the 0:01:18.956 --> 0:01:20.716 best navigator of the Air Force I had it, was 0:01:20.716 --> 0:01:23.596 a great pilot, He could do mechanics stuff. He was 0:01:23.636 --> 0:01:26.716 the Air Force's ultimate problem solver. But he was one 0:01:26.756 --> 0:01:28.796 of those guys that you would if you gave him 0:01:28.836 --> 0:01:30.596 a problem to fix, you didn't ask a whole lot 0:01:30.596 --> 0:01:30.956 of questions. 0:01:30.996 --> 0:01:33.716 Harry was going to do it bombs away. LeMay was 0:01:33.716 --> 0:01:39.396 known as someone you get the job done. My name 0:01:39.436 --> 0:01:43.276 is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, my podcast 0:01:43.316 --> 0:01:48.756 about things Overlooked and Misunderstood. This is part three of 0:01:48.796 --> 0:01:51.436 my four part series about Curtis le May and the 0:01:51.436 --> 0:02:00.076 events of March nineteen forty five. This episode is about 0:02:00.116 --> 0:02:02.396 the role of people like Curtis le May in times 0:02:02.396 --> 0:02:06.276 of crisis. In the normal course of events, we are 0:02:06.356 --> 0:02:10.876 led by people of ideas and people of arristhma. But 0:02:10.996 --> 0:02:14.156 when things start to go badly, those people get pushed 0:02:14.156 --> 0:02:19.276 aside and the problem solver takes center stage. Only the 0:02:19.356 --> 0:02:30.076 problem solver doesn't play by the same moral rules. Let 0:02:30.116 --> 0:02:32.156 me give you an example of what it means to 0:02:32.196 --> 0:02:34.916 approach the world the way someone like Curtis LeMay did. 0:02:35.876 --> 0:02:38.516 It's not one of the signature stories in the LeMay legend. 0:02:39.116 --> 0:02:42.076 It happened long before he was famous, years before the 0:02:42.076 --> 0:02:45.556 Second World War. He would mention it sometimes in passing 0:02:45.956 --> 0:02:48.956 in some of the interviews he gave in retirement, but 0:02:48.996 --> 0:02:52.676 it's one of those stories that made me stop and say, oh, 0:02:53.476 --> 0:02:58.876 I think I understand him now. In nineteen thirty seven, 0:02:59.116 --> 0:03:02.156 with the threat of war in Europe growing, the Army's 0:03:02.196 --> 0:03:05.436 Air Corps wanted a chance to practice their bombing technique, 0:03:06.316 --> 0:03:11.036 real world practice, only with dummy bombs fifty pounders filled 0:03:11.076 --> 0:03:11.516 with water. 0:03:12.276 --> 0:03:15.196 I'mt me tell you the story of that. I mentioned 0:03:15.196 --> 0:03:17.236 that the Air Force has been battling to make a 0:03:17.316 --> 0:03:21.396 contribution to the fans of the country ever since I've 0:03:21.436 --> 0:03:24.796 done around, nobody paid much attention to it. 0:03:26.036 --> 0:03:28.076 This is an interview LeMay gave to the Air Force 0:03:28.116 --> 0:03:31.356 Academy in nineteen seventy one, a few years after leaving 0:03:31.356 --> 0:03:33.596 his post as Chief of Staff of the Air Force. 0:03:34.116 --> 0:03:36.876 When he was taking the post retirement victory lap, a 0:03:36.996 --> 0:03:38.076 famous generals take. 0:03:38.716 --> 0:03:41.596 We wanted an exercise, or we could drop bomb on 0:03:41.676 --> 0:03:42.436 a battleship. 0:03:42.916 --> 0:03:46.956 Find a battleship for the practice run. To work, the 0:03:47.036 --> 0:03:49.876 Air Corps needed the Navy to play along. Hide a 0:03:49.916 --> 0:03:53.076 battleship out on the seas, give out its coordinates at 0:03:53.076 --> 0:03:55.636 the last minute, and dare the bombers to find it. 0:03:56.396 --> 0:04:00.156 This was before sophisticated radar and navigation aids. To find 0:04:00.156 --> 0:04:02.356 a battleship, you had to see it with your eyes, 0:04:02.556 --> 0:04:05.676 then hit its narrow decks with a bomb from thousands 0:04:05.716 --> 0:04:08.396 of feet up, all the while flying at hundreds of 0:04:08.436 --> 0:04:12.396 miles an hour. The Navy was not enthusiastic. 0:04:14.436 --> 0:04:18.716 Finally, they agreed that they would have an exercise and 0:04:18.796 --> 0:04:23.556 it would be in August off the West coast. Now 0:04:23.796 --> 0:04:26.636 in August off the west coast, there's nothing but fog 0:04:26.716 --> 0:04:31.716 for a thousand miles out there, and they deliberately picked 0:04:31.716 --> 0:04:33.476 it for this time. I'm sure. 0:04:35.876 --> 0:04:39.076 How could you spot a battleship in one thousand miles 0:04:39.076 --> 0:04:42.876 of fog. To make matters worse, the Navy bent the rules. 0:04:43.196 --> 0:04:45.476 The agreement was to have the wargame run for twenty 0:04:45.476 --> 0:04:48.996 four hours from noon the first day until noon the next, 0:04:49.316 --> 0:04:51.676 but the Navy didn't give out the coordinates of its ship, 0:04:51.996 --> 0:04:56.036 the uss Utah, until late the first afternoon, and the 0:04:56.076 --> 0:05:00.596 cordinates they gave were wrong, off by sixty miles one 0:05:00.636 --> 0:05:04.996 thousand miles of fog. Late directions, fake directions a needle 0:05:05.076 --> 0:05:09.076 in a haystack would have been easier at ten minutes before. 0:05:10.196 --> 0:05:12.876 At the very last moment, le May found the ship 0:05:13.396 --> 0:05:19.476 and dropped his bombs. Now, of course he found the ship, 0:05:19.796 --> 0:05:21.676 there was nothing Li May could not do if he 0:05:21.756 --> 0:05:23.836 put his mind to it. That's not the point of 0:05:23.836 --> 0:05:27.756 the story. The point is what happened before he dropped 0:05:27.756 --> 0:05:31.316 his bombs. The Navy was certain they couldn't be found, 0:05:31.676 --> 0:05:34.756 so they took no precautions. The sailors were all over 0:05:34.796 --> 0:05:37.316 the decks going about their business. They were supposed to 0:05:37.396 --> 0:05:40.916 take cover in a bombing exercise. They didn't. So what 0:05:41.036 --> 0:05:45.956 did LeMay do? He bombed the Utah anyway, raining fifty 0:05:45.996 --> 0:05:48.636 pound water bombs down on the sailors. 0:05:48.836 --> 0:05:51.836 And the Navy was so sure that they weren't going 0:05:51.916 --> 0:05:53.756 to be found. I don't know if that bog die 0:05:54.036 --> 0:05:56.636 like it, but the men were all over the decks, 0:05:56.876 --> 0:06:03.116 everybody diving for the gang plank patches and way hard 0:06:03.236 --> 0:06:06.596 rumors that there are a few people part a little bit. 0:06:09.556 --> 0:06:12.076 Imagine how other types of leaders might have handled the 0:06:12.116 --> 0:06:15.276 decision to bomb after seeing sailors out in the deck. 0:06:15.956 --> 0:06:19.316 The thinker would have understood the moral dimensions of willingly 0:06:19.356 --> 0:06:21.556 harming one of your own in the course of a 0:06:21.636 --> 0:06:25.796 routine training exercise. The charismatic leader would have wondered, what 0:06:25.836 --> 0:06:28.396 will my own men think of me if they see 0:06:28.396 --> 0:06:31.356 that I am capable of such a casual act of brutality. 0:06:32.156 --> 0:06:35.556 But the problem solver. The problem was to find the 0:06:35.716 --> 0:06:38.956 Utah and bomb it, and so he bombs it. 0:06:40.436 --> 0:06:45.196 I'd rather have somebody who is real stupid. I did 0:06:45.276 --> 0:06:50.076 something and even it was wrong, alre he did something, 0:06:51.516 --> 0:06:53.876 and I have somebody who would vacilate and do nothing. 0:06:57.236 --> 0:07:00.076 You cannot do nothing in the world view of the 0:07:00.116 --> 0:07:03.476 problem solver, even if what you end up doing is horrifying. 0:07:05.636 --> 0:07:08.476 In his memoirs, LeMay says they were rumors for years 0:07:08.476 --> 0:07:10.876 that some sale got killed in the bombing exercise of 0:07:10.916 --> 0:07:15.676 nineteen thirty seven, and then he says, quote, I remember 0:07:15.716 --> 0:07:18.916 watching the first bomb, which smashed into the deck. It 0:07:19.076 --> 0:07:22.716 sent splintered pieces of wood flying in every direction. I 0:07:22.756 --> 0:07:27.036 hadn't realized that wood could frag like that. It was 0:07:27.236 --> 0:07:31.796 a learning opportunity. Who knew wood reacted that way? He 0:07:31.876 --> 0:07:37.596 files that fact away and goes on to the next problem. 0:07:38.836 --> 0:07:40.996 In the first years of the Second World War, the 0:07:41.076 --> 0:07:44.676 American fight against the Japanese was defined by a single fact. 0:07:45.516 --> 0:07:48.436 Japan was beyond the reach of the US Air Force. 0:07:49.236 --> 0:07:52.556 The American workhorse bomber was the B seventeen. It had 0:07:52.596 --> 0:07:55.996 a range of roughly two thousand miles. That's a thousand 0:07:56.076 --> 0:07:59.756 miles out and one thousand miles back. Now, look at 0:07:59.756 --> 0:08:02.076 a map of the world from say, January of nineteen 0:08:02.116 --> 0:08:05.956 forty four, and try and find an air base controlled 0:08:05.996 --> 0:08:08.876 by the Allies that is within one thousand miles of 0:08:08.916 --> 0:08:14.116 tow You can't. And if you can't reach Japan, how 0:08:14.116 --> 0:08:17.316 on earth are you going to defeat them? The solution 0:08:17.916 --> 0:08:19.876 comes in two parts. 0:08:21.796 --> 0:08:26.676 This is where it began, here in the exact geographic 0:08:26.756 --> 0:08:31.436 center of the United States, Grand Island, Nebraska. 0:08:32.076 --> 0:08:35.276 That voice sounds familiar, doesn't it. It's fron of Reagan. 0:08:36.916 --> 0:08:40.676 Long before he became president, Reagan narrated newsreels during the 0:08:40.676 --> 0:08:41.436 Second World War. 0:08:41.956 --> 0:08:43.876 The men were brought here from every corner of the 0:08:43.916 --> 0:08:46.836 country and a few corners outside the country. 0:08:48.596 --> 0:08:49.196 They were a. 0:08:49.036 --> 0:08:53.836 Hand picked American mixture of draftees and west pointers, of butchers, 0:08:53.916 --> 0:08:59.676 teachers and bankers, of your sons, husbands, and fathers. 0:09:00.996 --> 0:09:05.436 In the newsreel, we see soldiers arriving in barracks, handsome 0:09:05.876 --> 0:09:10.676 crisp uniforms, all gazing up at a magnificent and gleaming airplane. 0:09:11.116 --> 0:09:16.196 She was a B twenty nine, the superport designed to 0:09:16.236 --> 0:09:21.476 carry more destruction and carry it higher, faster, farther than 0:09:21.516 --> 0:09:26.076 any bomber ever built before. And to complete this mission, 0:09:26.756 --> 0:09:28.876 That's exactly what she was going to have to do. 0:09:31.356 --> 0:09:34.316 She The B twenty nine was one of the great 0:09:34.356 --> 0:09:38.476 achievements of the American war effort, an enormous bomber dedicated 0:09:38.796 --> 0:09:41.676 entirely to the fight against the Japanese. In the Wars 0:09:41.716 --> 0:09:46.236 specific theater, the B twenty nine's range fifty six hundred 0:09:46.236 --> 0:09:50.836 miles much better than its predecessor. So then came the 0:09:50.916 --> 0:09:54.476 second step. In the summer of nineteen forty four, in 0:09:54.556 --> 0:09:56.916 some of the most brutal fighting of the war, the 0:09:56.956 --> 0:09:59.876 Marines captured three tiny specks in the middle of the 0:09:59.916 --> 0:10:06.836 Western Pacific, the Mariana Islands, Guam, Saipan, and Tinian. Why 0:10:06.836 --> 0:10:10.876 were they captured because the Marianna is with thirteen hundred 0:10:10.996 --> 0:10:15.356 and forty two miles from Tokyo, straight shot across the ocean, 0:10:16.516 --> 0:10:19.876 put the B twenty nine together with the Marianas, and 0:10:19.956 --> 0:10:22.476 overnight the odds of beating Japan shifted. 0:10:23.716 --> 0:10:27.636 June of nineteen forty four is a arguably the most 0:10:27.676 --> 0:10:30.356 important month of the war. You have D Day and 0:10:30.796 --> 0:10:33.716 where we go ashore in northwest Europe, you have the 0:10:33.756 --> 0:10:37.956 invasion of the Marianas and the Pacific, the final breaking 0:10:38.036 --> 0:10:42.716 of the internal defense line of the Japanese, the fall 0:10:42.756 --> 0:10:46.156 of the Tojo government because of that. So all that 0:10:46.156 --> 0:10:47.556 stuff happens in that same month. 0:10:48.436 --> 0:10:51.316 Throughout the summer and fall of nineteen forty four, the 0:10:51.396 --> 0:10:54.396 Navy built massive bases on each of the captured islands 0:10:54.396 --> 0:10:58.396 of the Mariannas. The biggest base contained the largest airport 0:10:58.476 --> 0:11:03.356 in the world that was on tinian six runways, the 0:11:03.396 --> 0:11:07.356 equivalent of three Boulder dams with a concrete and when 0:11:07.356 --> 0:11:10.596 they were finished, the military again flying in brand new 0:11:10.676 --> 0:11:14.596 B twenty nine bombers, hundreds of them. 0:11:14.836 --> 0:11:18.596 Their final base was no longer a mystery. Four thousand 0:11:18.636 --> 0:11:22.476 miles farther west, with only one refueling stop on the way, 0:11:23.196 --> 0:11:27.796 lay the island of Saipan. Less than four months before, 0:11:28.476 --> 0:11:30.556 it had still been in the hands of the Japanese. 0:11:32.116 --> 0:11:34.596 To head up the newly created B twenty nine strike 0:11:34.636 --> 0:11:38.436 force known as the twenty first Bomber Command, the military 0:11:38.436 --> 0:11:41.116 brass brought in a high priest of the bomber mafia, 0:11:41.716 --> 0:11:49.036 a brilliant young general named Hayward Hansel. Hayward Hansel came 0:11:49.076 --> 0:11:53.516 from an aristocratic Southern military family. His great grandfather was 0:11:53.596 --> 0:11:58.036 a general in the Confederate Army, his grandfather a Confederate officer. 0:11:59.076 --> 0:12:01.796 Hansel's father had been an army surgeon who came to 0:12:01.796 --> 0:12:04.716 dinner in a white linen suit and a panama hat. 0:12:05.116 --> 0:12:08.276 Hansel himself was a skilled dancer, a poet, and an 0:12:08.276 --> 0:12:12.516 aficionado of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. His favorite book was 0:12:12.556 --> 0:12:15.716 Don Quixote. He felt a connection with the knight tilting 0:12:15.756 --> 0:12:20.396 at windmills. He put flying first, Polo second, and family 0:12:20.636 --> 0:12:24.516 a distant third. Once the story goes early in his marriage, 0:12:24.596 --> 0:12:26.836 he heard a baby cry and turned to his wife, 0:12:27.156 --> 0:12:32.156 what's that sound. That's your son, she said. He liked 0:12:32.156 --> 0:12:35.596 to carry a swagger stick, like the English army officers did. 0:12:37.796 --> 0:12:40.836 As a child, he was nicknamed Possum because of the 0:12:40.956 --> 0:12:46.236 narrowness of his face. The name stuck. On his final 0:12:46.396 --> 0:12:49.676 mission as a pilot, a bombing run over Belgium, Hensel 0:12:49.876 --> 0:12:52.956 entertained his exhausted crew with a rendition of the popular 0:12:53.076 --> 0:12:57.756 music hall song The Man on the Flying Trapeze. This 0:12:57.876 --> 0:13:01.836 is the most famous version. Eddie canters, Oh. 0:13:03.996 --> 0:13:07.916 He floats through the air with the greatest evise, this 0:13:08.156 --> 0:13:10.916 daring young man, and I'm the flying trabbe. 0:13:11.396 --> 0:13:12.516 His actions are. 0:13:12.436 --> 0:13:15.876 Graceful, old girls, He does please, and my love was 0:13:15.956 --> 0:13:21.676 soolen away. Of all the bombing fundamentalists to come out 0:13:21.716 --> 0:13:24.956 of the Air Corps tactical school, Heyward Hansel was the 0:13:25.036 --> 0:13:31.996 truest believer the idealist airpower, intelligently and surgically deployed could 0:13:31.996 --> 0:13:35.316 bring any enemy to its knees well. 0:13:36.956 --> 0:13:40.836 The first operation against Japam was called San Antonio one. 0:13:41.196 --> 0:13:43.956 It was coordinated with the Joint Cheese of Staff strategy, 0:13:44.396 --> 0:13:48.076 which made the timing extremely important. As a matter of fact, 0:13:48.116 --> 0:13:50.556 we were going. We were in some danger of standin 0:13:50.636 --> 0:13:51.916 of falling on this operation. 0:13:52.636 --> 0:13:55.796 When Possum Hansel takes over in the Mariannas in nineteen 0:13:55.836 --> 0:13:59.676 forty four, he says to himself, what is the critical 0:13:59.876 --> 0:14:04.156 vulnerability of the Japanese war economy? What can my newbe 0:14:04.356 --> 0:14:08.236 twenty nine's attack. The answer to him is obvious. The 0:14:08.316 --> 0:14:13.116 Japanese air craft manufacturing plants, which are almost entirely concentrated 0:14:13.356 --> 0:14:17.236 in a few factories in and around Tokyo, in particular 0:14:17.476 --> 0:14:22.436 the Nakajima Aircraft Company known as Subru. Today Nakajima made 0:14:22.436 --> 0:14:25.996 at least a third of all Japanese combat aircraft engines. 0:14:26.476 --> 0:14:31.076 Hansel said, let's hit Nakajima, and we'll cripple the Japanese 0:14:31.116 --> 0:14:37.476 fighting force. The newsreel Ronald Reagan narrated, is all about 0:14:37.476 --> 0:14:39.996 that first attack by Hansel on Nakajima. 0:14:40.516 --> 0:14:47.516 Six hours later, through the clouds, they saw it, Fujiyama. 0:14:47.716 --> 0:14:52.276 Here comes some modern symbols, phosphorus, bombs and flag. 0:14:56.316 --> 0:14:59.476 The B twenty nine s traveled fifteen hundred miles from 0:14:59.516 --> 0:15:03.236 the Marianas, skimming over the ocean at several thousand feet. 0:15:03.876 --> 0:15:07.236 As they approached Japan, they climbed twenty five or thirty 0:15:07.276 --> 0:15:11.156 thousand feet out of harm's way. They turned at Mount Fuji, 0:15:11.236 --> 0:15:16.236 then came in from the west over Tokyo. Here, speaking 0:15:16.276 --> 0:15:19.876 over aerial shots of the city, Reagan lays it on thick. 0:15:21.316 --> 0:15:24.196 Within a radius of fifteen miles of the Imperial Palace 0:15:24.236 --> 0:15:28.196 lived seven million Japanese, a people we used to think 0:15:28.236 --> 0:15:32.636 of as small, dainty, polite, concerning themselves only with floral 0:15:32.716 --> 0:15:37.036 arrangements and rock gardens and the cultivation of silkworms. But 0:15:37.116 --> 0:15:40.276 it isn't silkworms, and it isn't Imperial Palace. As these 0:15:40.316 --> 0:15:44.636 men are looking for in the suburbs of Tokyo is 0:15:44.676 --> 0:15:50.076 the huge Nakajima aircraft plant. Well, bud, what are you 0:15:50.156 --> 0:15:50.596 waiting for? 0:15:53.556 --> 0:15:58.676 Like I said? He dated on a little thick That 0:15:58.796 --> 0:16:03.676 first mission, San Antonio I was hugely symbolic proof that 0:16:03.756 --> 0:16:07.396 Japan could finally be reached. But was it a success 0:16:07.396 --> 0:16:12.476 as a military operation? After the war. Speaking to cadets 0:16:12.476 --> 0:16:15.156 at the Air Force Academy, Hansel tried to put a 0:16:15.156 --> 0:16:16.196 good face on things. 0:16:16.916 --> 0:16:20.196 The operation wasn't because had light by un permission help it. 0:16:21.676 --> 0:16:23.956 It did show that it could be done, and this 0:16:24.116 --> 0:16:28.476 was a very very Dunfeld issue. 0:16:28.236 --> 0:16:28.636 At the time. 0:16:29.916 --> 0:16:32.236 The operation wasn't as good as we would have liked, 0:16:33.076 --> 0:16:36.196 was to say the least, an understatement. None of the 0:16:36.236 --> 0:16:39.516 bombs dropped by Hansel's B twenty nine s actually hit 0:16:39.556 --> 0:16:43.236 the Nakajima plant, so Hansel tried again three days later, 0:16:43.316 --> 0:16:48.196 same thing. Hansel sent mission after mission. On one of 0:16:48.236 --> 0:16:50.956 his last attempts, he went back with seventy two B 0:16:51.076 --> 0:16:57.796 twenty nines. They missed the plant and hit a hospital. Heyward, 0:16:57.796 --> 0:17:01.916 Hansel couldn't solve the problem because the problem was much 0:17:01.916 --> 0:17:19.396 bigger than anyone at the time understood. Long after the war, 0:17:19.676 --> 0:17:23.796 one of Heywood Hansel's B twenty nine pilots, Lieutenant Ed Hyatt, 0:17:24.156 --> 0:17:26.676 was interviewed for a documentary by the BBC. 0:17:27.796 --> 0:17:30.916 After flying six hours, we climbed up to bombing altitude. 0:17:31.116 --> 0:17:34.596 We climbed up to thirty seven thousand feet and just 0:17:34.636 --> 0:17:36.876 as we broke out of the storm, there's Mount Fuji 0:17:36.916 --> 0:17:39.956 sitting right in front of us, and it's a gorgeous site. 0:17:39.996 --> 0:17:40.516 It really is. 0:17:41.716 --> 0:17:44.756 Hyatt tried to describe what went wrong on those first 0:17:44.876 --> 0:17:48.676 B twenty nine precision attacks on Tokyo. His bombardier, a 0:17:48.716 --> 0:17:51.716 man named Glenn, starts to make his calculations on their 0:17:51.756 --> 0:17:55.996 bomb site, lining up the Nakajima factory, but the telescope 0:17:56.036 --> 0:17:57.796 on the bomb site wouldn't line up. 0:17:58.316 --> 0:18:00.916 They turned around and he said, he said, I can't 0:18:00.956 --> 0:18:05.876 get this damn telescope on the target. And so we 0:18:06.196 --> 0:18:08.916 called a radar operator check our ground speed and see 0:18:09.196 --> 0:18:11.636 what our ground speed is. He came back and he says, 0:18:11.636 --> 0:18:14.316 we got one hundred and twenty five tailwind. He said, 0:18:14.316 --> 0:18:16.236 we're going about four hundred and eighty miles an hour. 0:18:16.836 --> 0:18:19.716 It's impossible, it can't be. There's no wins like that. 0:18:22.236 --> 0:18:25.436 No Air Force pilots had ever experienced what was now 0:18:25.476 --> 0:18:28.556 happening to the B twenty nine bombers over Japan. They 0:18:28.676 --> 0:18:31.316 expected winds a fraction of these speeds. 0:18:32.356 --> 0:18:34.396 We're going four hundred and eighty miles an hour when 0:18:34.396 --> 0:18:37.116 we should be going three hundred and forty miles an hour. 0:18:38.036 --> 0:18:42.036 I said, well, Glenn dropped the damn bombs. He dropped 0:18:42.036 --> 0:18:44.476 the bombs, and we were already twelve miles past the 0:18:44.516 --> 0:18:46.436 target because of that wind. 0:18:48.436 --> 0:18:51.476 They were bewildered, and back at base they couldn't explain 0:18:51.516 --> 0:18:54.716 what happened to their superiors from. 0:18:54.556 --> 0:18:58.676 The debriefed as they gave us a third degree, they said, no, 0:18:59.636 --> 0:19:02.236 there is no such thing. There can't be a win 0:19:02.476 --> 0:19:05.196 like that. You're a lion. You didn't make it over 0:19:05.236 --> 0:19:06.796 the target. You're just making this up. 0:19:07.956 --> 0:19:10.636 But one crew after another arrived back at the Marianas 0:19:10.996 --> 0:19:12.516 and told the exact same story. 0:19:12.956 --> 0:19:16.716 To tell you how powerful these winds were. A reconnaissance 0:19:16.756 --> 0:19:19.556 plane went up on time to take some pictures after 0:19:19.636 --> 0:19:22.396 a mission to see how effective they'd been, and the 0:19:22.516 --> 0:19:25.836 navigator called the pilot and told him they were going 0:19:25.876 --> 0:19:29.996 three miles an hour backwards. That was something you couldn't 0:19:29.996 --> 0:19:32.236 afford to do, because if you went from east to west, 0:19:32.276 --> 0:19:34.796 you were going to be a sitting duck for Japanese 0:19:34.796 --> 0:19:36.036 fighters or their flag. 0:19:37.556 --> 0:19:41.476 To solve that puzzle, Hensel turned to his team of meteorologists. 0:19:42.076 --> 0:19:45.196 They'd all been trained at the University of Chicago. Back then, 0:19:45.316 --> 0:19:49.276 in the days before a sophisticated radar, meteorologists were crucial 0:19:49.316 --> 0:19:52.236 to the success of bombing campaigns. If you were doing 0:19:52.276 --> 0:19:54.916 a daylight bombing run over a city, you had to 0:19:54.956 --> 0:19:57.796 see the target in order to line up the bomb site, 0:19:57.996 --> 0:20:01.076 and if the skies were too cloudy, that was impossible. 0:20:01.796 --> 0:20:04.236 So going or not going on a mission hinged on 0:20:04.276 --> 0:20:08.436 the weather forecast. But the tools available to meteorologists of 0:20:08.476 --> 0:20:13.596 that era were crude. The easiest thing to forget about 0:20:13.596 --> 0:20:16.836 the Second World War is that it was another technological era. 0:20:17.676 --> 0:20:21.836 It's half twentieth century and half nineteenth century. The chief 0:20:21.916 --> 0:20:25.956 tool of the meteorologists of that time were balloons weather 0:20:25.996 --> 0:20:29.556 balloons that would float up into the atmosphere, carrying little 0:20:29.596 --> 0:20:33.156 instrument kits that could record the wind, the temperature, and 0:20:33.196 --> 0:20:38.636 the humidity and transmit that information back to Earth. I 0:20:38.676 --> 0:20:41.676 asked John Lewis about those days he's a scientist at 0:20:41.676 --> 0:20:44.876 the Desert Research Institute in Nevada. He knew a number 0:20:44.876 --> 0:20:47.356 of the meteorologists who worked with the Air Force during 0:20:47.356 --> 0:20:50.836 the war. Are these balloons they can forgive me? It's 0:20:50.876 --> 0:20:53.556 a very naive question. Are they connected by a rope 0:20:53.636 --> 0:20:54.796 or are they just free floating? 0:20:54.916 --> 0:20:55.076 Oh? 0:20:55.116 --> 0:20:55.916 No, they're released. 0:20:56.036 --> 0:21:00.236 They eventually, as the pressure gets lower, as the balloon 0:21:00.276 --> 0:21:04.276 goes higher in the atmosphere, they expand, expand, expand. Kaboom, 0:21:04.636 --> 0:21:07.556 they explode and they fall to the ground with the 0:21:07.596 --> 0:21:10.796 instrument attached. And at that time they had a message 0:21:10.796 --> 0:21:13.916 on all the instrument packages, could you please return this 0:21:13.956 --> 0:21:16.476 to the University of Chicago in. 0:21:16.436 --> 0:21:19.676 The Pacific field of war. That technique wasn't going to work. 0:21:20.276 --> 0:21:23.156 So there they were, the meteorologists in the middle of 0:21:23.156 --> 0:21:26.076 the Pacific with one of the most important jobs in 0:21:26.116 --> 0:21:29.676 the whole outfit, figuring out when to send the bombers, 0:21:30.236 --> 0:21:39.556 and they're baffled. What's with these winds? On a theoretical level, 0:21:40.276 --> 0:21:44.076 Do they have a suspicion that there may be very 0:21:44.156 --> 0:21:46.356 very high winds at high altitudes at the Air Force? 0:21:46.756 --> 0:21:48.916 Or is it that they don't reach that conclusion until 0:21:48.916 --> 0:21:50.476 the pilots come back with their. 0:21:50.876 --> 0:21:53.956 They did not reach their conclusions until the pilots came back. 0:21:55.476 --> 0:21:58.396 What slowly became clear is that the pilots had stumbled 0:21:58.396 --> 0:22:02.916 on a previously unknown phenomenon in the upper atmosphere, what 0:22:03.076 --> 0:22:07.516 came to be known as the jet stream, a river 0:22:07.636 --> 0:22:10.516 of fast flowing air that circles the globe starting at 0:22:10.556 --> 0:22:14.516 around twenty thousand feet. Some scientists had theorized about the 0:22:14.556 --> 0:22:17.396 jet stream, but until the B twenty nine was built, 0:22:17.676 --> 0:22:20.556 almost no one had ever flown at altitudes high enough 0:22:20.756 --> 0:22:23.076 to experience those winds firsthand. 0:22:24.636 --> 0:22:31.716 This vast stream of air, very narrow, moves from north 0:22:31.956 --> 0:22:37.036 to south in both hemispheres. Basically, it is dividing the 0:22:37.236 --> 0:22:41.316 very cold air of the polar regions from the more 0:22:41.476 --> 0:22:46.156 warm mid latitude and equatorial air. 0:22:46.956 --> 0:22:50.836 Yeah, when you say very narrow, how narrow. 0:22:50.196 --> 0:22:55.836 I would say typically two hundred kilometers across something on 0:22:55.876 --> 0:22:59.116 that order. So that's the narrowness of it. 0:23:00.276 --> 0:23:02.356 And did it entirely encircle the Earth? 0:23:02.756 --> 0:23:03.356 It does? 0:23:05.996 --> 0:23:08.836 So what is the problem facing the pilots gathered on 0:23:08.876 --> 0:23:12.036 the man that in the winter of nineteen forty four 0:23:12.316 --> 0:23:15.996 and the early spring of nineteen forty five, this narrow 0:23:16.236 --> 0:23:18.636 hurricane force band of air known as a jet stream, 0:23:18.956 --> 0:23:23.796 happens to be directly over Japan, and that makes it 0:23:23.836 --> 0:23:27.316 impossible for Hansel to do any of the precision bombing 0:23:27.436 --> 0:23:30.276 that he had planned to do. If they fly across it, 0:23:30.556 --> 0:23:33.636 the plane will get blown sideways. If they fly into it, 0:23:33.836 --> 0:23:36.596 they'll be fighting to stay aloft and be easy targets 0:23:36.636 --> 0:23:39.516 for the Japanese. And if they fly with it, they'll 0:23:39.516 --> 0:23:42.916 be racing too fast to take proper aim. In the 0:23:42.956 --> 0:23:46.316 service of a conviction that bombing could bring Japan to 0:23:46.356 --> 0:23:49.556 its knees, Thousands of Marines had been killed in the 0:23:49.596 --> 0:23:53.716 fight to capture the Marianas. The construction of the three 0:23:53.756 --> 0:23:56.916 island air bases had been one of the most intensive 0:23:57.316 --> 0:24:00.716 engineering feats of the war. The B twenty nine was 0:24:00.796 --> 0:24:04.796 a three billion dollar project that's forty three billion in 0:24:04.836 --> 0:24:08.116 today's money. All of that investment in the air war 0:24:08.156 --> 0:24:12.316 against the Japanese by December of nineteen forty four had 0:24:12.356 --> 0:24:16.316 come up empty. Hansel and all the other brass and 0:24:16.356 --> 0:24:23.196 the Marianas were bewildered. When a true believer discovers that 0:24:23.276 --> 0:24:28.796 his God cannot save him, what's left nothing Heyward Hansel 0:24:29.436 --> 0:24:34.796 was finished in January of nineteen forty five, Hansel was 0:24:34.836 --> 0:24:37.756 relieved of his post as head of the twenty first 0:24:37.756 --> 0:24:41.276 bomber command. In his place was put the man you 0:24:41.356 --> 0:24:46.476 bring in when all else has failed, Curtis le May. 0:24:47.476 --> 0:24:50.916 Even decades later, possum Hansel would bristle when asked about 0:24:50.916 --> 0:24:54.436 the circumstances of his departure and the person who replaced 0:24:54.476 --> 0:24:57.236 him in the Pacific. He had taught le May at 0:24:57.236 --> 0:25:00.316 the Air Court Tactical School and was his commanding officer 0:25:00.316 --> 0:25:04.236 in Europe. Here's Hansel again at the Air Force Academy 0:25:04.236 --> 0:25:07.116 in nineteen sixty seven. He's just been asked a name 0:25:07.156 --> 0:25:10.196 who he felt were the finest officers of his generation. 0:25:11.636 --> 0:25:15.876 Among the people who I knew in my littleitary career, 0:25:16.876 --> 0:25:22.316 I would say the three hank standing ones, John Marshall, 0:25:22.556 --> 0:25:27.516 Joel Andrews and John Fradhn And they were outstanding for 0:25:27.556 --> 0:25:30.076 pretty much the same reason they were man okay, character, 0:25:31.276 --> 0:25:35.956 They were obviously intelligent man, but no a spersonal integrity 0:25:35.996 --> 0:25:36.556 and character. 0:25:37.596 --> 0:25:39.516 General O May was one of your group commanders. 0:25:39.556 --> 0:25:41.476