Richard Rhodes Quote
The Strategic Bombing Survey estimates that probably more persons lost their lives by fire at Tokyo in a 6-hour period than at any [equivalent period of] time in the history of man. The fire storm at Dresden may have killed more people but not in so short a space of time. More than 100,000 men, women and children died in Tokyo on the night of March 9-10, 1945; a million were injured, at least 41,000 seriously; a million in all lost their homes. Two thousand tons of incendiaries delivered that punishment—in the modern notation, two kilotons. But the wind, not the weight of bombs alone, created the conflagration, and therefore the efficiency of the slaughter was in some sense still in part an act of God.
Richard Rhodes
The Strategic Bombing Survey estimates that probably more persons lost their lives by fire at Tokyo in a 6-hour period than at any [equivalent period of] time in the history of man. The fire storm at Dresden may have killed more people but not in so short a space of time. More than 100,000 men, women and children died in Tokyo on the night of March 9-10, 1945; a million were injured, at least 41,000 seriously; a million in all lost their homes. Two thousand tons of incendiaries delivered that punishment—in the modern notation, two kilotons. But the wind, not the weight of bombs alone, created the conflagration, and therefore the efficiency of the slaughter was in some sense still in part an act of God.
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About Richard Rhodes
Rhodes has been awarded grants from the Ford Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation among others. Rhodes is an affiliate of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. He also frequently gives lectures and talks on a broad range of subjects, including testimony to the U.S. Senate on nuclear energy.