Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time... I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal.

Flying bombers is important. Aerial mining supplemented a tight Allied submarine blockade of the home islands drastically reducing Japan's ability to supply its overseas forces to the point that postwar analysis concluded that it could have defeated Japan on its own had it begun earlier. LeMay called the peaceful resolution of the crisis "the greatest defeat in our history".

He is credited with designing and implementing an effective but also controversial systematic strategic bombing campaign in the Pacific theater of World War II. After the war he headed the Berlin airlift then reorganized the Strategic Air Command (SAC) into an effective instrument of nuclear war. During the war he was known for planning and executing a massive bombing campaign against cities in Japan and a crippling minelaying campaign of Japan's internal waterways.