Bombing of Tokyo (10 March 1945)
Bombs dropped from 279 Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers burned out much of eastern Tokyo. More than 90,000 and possibly over 100,000 Japanese people were killed, mostly civilians, and one million were left homeless. The Japanese air and civil defenses proved largely inadequate; 14 American aircraft and 96 airmen were lost.
About Bombing of Tokyo (10 March 1945) in brief
Bombs dropped from 279 Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers burned out much of eastern Tokyo. More than 90,000 and possibly over 100,000 Japanese people were killed, mostly civilians, and one million were left homeless. The Japanese air and civil defenses proved largely inadequate; 14 American aircraft and 96 airmen were lost. The attack on Tokyo was an intensification of the air raids on Japan which had begun in June 1944. There has been a long-running debate over the morality of the 10 March firebombing of Tokyo. The raid is often cited as a key example in criticism of the Allies’ strategic bombing campaigns, with many historians and commentators arguing that it was not acceptable for the USAAF to deliberately target civilians. It is generally acknowledged that the tactics used against Tokyo and in similar subsequent raids were militarily successful. The American Doolittle Raid on 18 April 1942 was the first air attack onTokyo, but inflicted little damage on the city. Tokyo was beyond the range of Superfortresses operating from China, and was not attacked. This changed in October 1944, when the B- 29s of the XXI Bomber Command began moving into airfields in the Mariana Islands. The overall plan for the strategic bombing campaign against Japan specified that it would commence with precision raids against key industrial facilities, and later include fire Bombing attacks on cities. The first target directive issued to the XX Bomber Command by its parent unit, the Twentieth Air Force, on 11 November, 1944 specified that the main target was Japanese aircraft and aviation engine factories.
These targets were to be attacked by precision bombing, with fire bombing also likely to be used against them. The directive also indicated that fire bombing attacks against cities were likely to also be use against them, with the aim of terrorizing the Japanese forces and cutting them off from their sources of supplies. The USAAF units employed significantly different tactics from those used in precision raids, including bombing by night with the aircraft flying at low altitudes. The extensive destruction caused by the raid led to these tactics becoming standard for the U.S. Air Force until the end of the war. These raids destroyed most of the city, and these images were photographed in the remainder of Tokyo, and the rest of the Japanese capital was photographed in other parts of the country. These images were used to plan subsequent reconnaissance flights and other attacks on urban areas of Japan. The raids destroyed the city in the early hours of 10 March 1945, and are commemorated at two official memorials, several neighborhood memorials and a privately run museum. The attacks are considered one of the most destructive single air attacks in human history, and have been called the “Great Tokyo Air Raid in Japan” and the “greatest single air attack in history” The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution condemning the use of incendiary bombs in World War II, and called for an end to use of high-explosive bombs in all future air attacks.
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This page is based on the article Bombing of Tokyo (10 March 1945) published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 11, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
