SIR,—Mr. Peter Fleming, as I read his article in your
issue of Decem- ber 13th, would regard the difference in destructiveness between atomic and chemical bombing as being quantative rather than qualitative. • I would reverse the priority. The raid on Hiroshima (or Nagasaki) was not the most destructive on record of life and property ; that distinction is held by the raid on Tokio on the night of March 9, 1945 (when 1,667 tons of incendiary bombs devastated fifteen square miles of the city and caused 185,000 casualties, including 83,000 deaths. But the atomic raid was the most terrible in history because of the after-effect on human beings cf the gamma rays emitted. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey's report on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is my authority for the statements made above.—Yours faithfully, J. M. SPA1GHT. Inglernere, 29 Smitham Downs Road, Purley, Surrey.
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