Curtis LeMay: Killing

“There are no innocent civilians. It is their government and you are fighting a people, you are not trying to fight an armed force anymore. So it doesn't bother me so much to be killing the so-called innocent bystanders.”

Curtis LeMay

Sherry, Michael (September 10, 1989). <i>The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon</i>, p. 287 (from "LeMay's interview with Sherry," interview "after the war," p. 408 n. 108). Yale University Press. ISBN-13: 978-0300044140.

People , Fight

“I'll tell you what war is about, you've got to kill people, and when you've killed enough they stop fighting.”

Curtis LeMay

Quoted by Richard Rhodes in Wikipedia: The Making of the Atomic Bomb

War , People , Fight

“We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, someway or another, and some in South Korea too.… Over a period of three years or so, we killed off — what — twenty percent of the population of Korea as direct casualties of war, or from starvation and exposure?”

Curtis LeMay

Strategic Air Warfare: An Interview with Generals (1988), p. 88.

War

“Actually, I think it's more immoral to use less force than necessary, than it is to use more. if you use less force, you kill off more of humanity in the long run, because you are merely protracting the struggle.”

Curtis LeMay

Mission with LeMay: My Story (1965), p. 382.

Thinking

“We’re at war with Japan. We were attacked by Japan. Do you want to kill Japanese, or would you rather have Americans killed?”

Curtis LeMay

From his autobiography, also requoted in Rhodes, 'The Making of the Atomic Bomb', p. 596

War

“As far as casualties were concerned I think there were more casualties in the first attack on Tokyo with incendiaries than there were with the first use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The fact that it's done instantaneously, maybe that's more humane than incendiary attacks, if you can call any war act humane. I don't, particularly, so to me there wasn't much difference. A weapon is a weapon and it really doesn't make much difference how you kill a man. If you have to kill him, well, that's the evil to start with and how you do it becomes pretty secondary. I think your choice should be which weapon is the most efficient and most likely to get the whole mess over with as early as possible.”

Curtis LeMay

The World at War: the Landmark Oral History from the Classic TV Series, p. 574

War , Thinking , Evil

“Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time… I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal…. Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier.”

Curtis LeMay

On the morality of the firebombing campaign http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/peopleevents/pandeAMEX61.html)

War , Thinking , Time