Relatively few successful warriors are sensitive men or congenial fireside companions. Most possess an elemental commitment of an intensity happily unusual in civilised societies. They must daily give orders which bring death upon their own people, as well as the enemy. It is understandable that generations reared in peace, in the privileged circumstances of our twenty-first-century lives, should feel a revulsion towards the personal characters of [Sir Arthur] Harris and [Curtis] LeMay. Yet such men are useful, indeed indispensable, in a war of national survival.

– Max Hastings in Retribution:The Battle for Japan, 1944-45