He also began scavenging the bombed-out landscape for acquisitions that would add trading volume.

FORBES: What Mortgage Mess?

In Amman, Jordan, the group spoke to "Mr. E, " a logistician who fled Iraq after militants bombed the company he worked for, killing three staffers.

CNN: Report: World ignoring Iraqi refugee crisis

His most formative memory, he often says, was being bombed and evacuated in London during World War II.

NPR: Playwright Pinter Wins Nobel for Literature

Later, in a bombed-out Iraqi barracks, he wrote a starkly prescient letter to a Marine friend.

WSJ: For Wounded Vet, Love Pierces the Fog of War

Although he was discharged from the army in 1941 after a year of service, he immediately reenlisted after learning that Pearl Harbor had been bombed.

FORBES: Walter Shorenstein, Real Estate Magnate, Dies at 95

He was in command of his facts, but Vista bombed and, at times, seemed as if it was going to take the company down with it.

FORBES: Can Anybody Run Microsoft?

He owned a trucking company in Hawaii when Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941 and sent his fleet in to help evacuate.

FORBES: Hawaiian Ernie Higa Reintroduces Wendy's Hamburgers to Japan

The head of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq, Nickolay Mladenov, told reporters Wednesday that the warplanes that bombed the Iraqi cities were not Iraqi jets, but he did not have information beyond that.

CNN: ISIS right outside Baghdad

He compares Cowell's predicament with that of Mark Burnett, who had a titanic success with Survivor but bombed with a later reality show, The Contender.

FORBES: Celebrity 100