There was also an element of frustration involved - initial efforts at traditional strategic bombing had resulted in few noticeable effects because the Japanese war machine was more dependent on labor than on machinery, and could easily be reconstituted at new locations. And Japanese cities were immensely flammable - it didn’t take long for a new, uglier conclusion to be reached.

Postwar analysis of the terror bombings of Japan were not dissimilar to the conclusions reached by the analysis in Europe, though - in both cases, it was a waste of resources that murdered civilians for no substantial gain.