This work sets suppositions against facts surrounding the United States' use of strategic bombing in World War II. Chapters cover the events leading up to the war, the start of the war, the seers and the planners, the airplanes, bombs, bombsights, and air-crews, the planes Germany used to defend itself against American planes, the five cities (Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki) that saw the heaviest bombing, and the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey of the damage done.The book probes the government's myth-building statements that supported America's view of itself as a uniquely humanitarian nation, and analyzes the role played by interservice rivalry -- "battleship admirals" against "bomber generals.