Bombing of Tokyo in World War II

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Bombing of Tokyo in World War II

The bombing of Tokyo by the United States Army Air Forces

United States Army Air Forces

The United States Army Air Forces was the military aviation arm of the United States of America during and immediately after World War II. The direct precursor to the United States Air Force, its peak size was over 2.4 million men and women in service and nearly 80,000 aircraft in 1944, and 783 domestic bases in December 1943....
took place at several times during the Pacific campaigns

Pacific War

The Pacific War was the part of World War II?and preceding conflicts?that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in East Asia, between July 7, 1937 and August 14, 1945....
of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
and included the most destructive bombing raid in history.

Doolittle Raid
The first raid on Tokyo

Tokyo

, officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan of Japan and located on the eastern side of the main island Honshu. The twenty-three special wards of Tokyo, each governed as a city, cover the area that was once the Tokyo City in the eastern part of the prefecture, and total over 8 million people....
was the Doolittle Raid

Doolittle Raid

The Doolittle Raid, 18 April 1942, was the first airstrike by the United States to strike a Japanese home island during World War II. It demonstrated that Japan itself was vulnerable to Allies of World War II air attack and provided an expedient means for U.S....
of 18 April 1942, when sixteen B-25 Mitchell

B-25 Mitchell

The North American B-25 Mitchell was an American twin-engined medium bomber manufactured by North American Aviation. It was used by many Allies of World War II air forces, in every theater of World War II, as well as many other air forces after the war ended, and saw service across four decades....
s were launched from USS Hornet

USS Hornet (CV-8)

of the United States Navy was a of World War II, notable for launching the Doolittle Raid, as a participant in the Battle of Midway, and for action in the Solomon Islands before being irreparably damaged and sunk in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands....
to attack targets including Yokohama

Yokohama

is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kanto region of the main island of Honshu. It is a major commercial hub of the Greater Tokyo Area....
and Tokyo and then fly on to airfields in China

China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
. The raid did no damage to Japan's war capability but was a significant propaganda

Propaganda

Propaganda is the dissemination of information aimed at influencing the opinions or behaviors of large numbers of people. As opposed to Objectivity providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense presents information in order to influence its audience....
victory for the United States

United States

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Doolittle Raid

The first raid on Tokyo

Tokyo

Doolittle Raid

B-25 Mitchell

USS Hornet (CV-8)

Yokohama

China

Propaganda

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
. Launched prematurely, none of the attacking aircraft reached the designated airfields, either crashing or ditching (except for one aircraft which landed in the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
, where the crew was interned). Two crews were captured by the Japan

Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
ese.

B-29 raids

The key development for the bombing of Japan was the B-29, which had an operational range of 3,250 nautical miles (6,019 km); almost 90% of the bombs dropped on the home islands of Japan were delivered by this type of bomber. The initial raids were carried out by the Twentieth Air Force

Twentieth Air Force

Twentieth Air Force is a Numbered Air Force of the United States in Air Force Space Command . It is headquartered at F.E. Warren Air Force Base Wyoming....
operating out of mainland China in Operation Matterhorn

Operation Matterhorn

Operation Matterhorn was a military operations plan of the United States Army Air Forces in World War II for the strategic bombing of Empire of Japan by B-29 Superfortresses based in India and China....
under XX Bomber Command

XX Bomber Command

The XX Bomber Command is an inactive United States Air Force unit. Its last assignment was with Pacific Air Forces, based on Okinawa. It was inactivated on July 16, 1945....
but was supplemented in November 1944 by the activation of XXI Bomber Command based in the Northern Mariana Islands

Northern Mariana Islands

The Northern Mariana Islands , officially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands , is a commonwealth in political union with the United States, occupying a strategic region of the western Pacific Ocean....
. The B-29s of XX Bomber Command were transferred to XXI Bomber Command in the spring of 1945 and based on Guam

Guam

Guam , officially the Territory of Guam, is an island in the western Pacific Ocean and is an organized, unincorporated insular area of the United States....
.

The first raid using low-flying B-29s carrying incendiaries

Incendiary device

Incendiary devices or incendiary bombs are bombs designed to start fires or destroy sensitive equipment using materials such as napalm, thermite, chlorine trifluoride, or white phosphorus incendiary....
to drop on Tokyo was on the night of 24–25 February 1945 when 174 B-29s destroyed around one square mile (3 km²) of the city.

Changing their tactics to expand the coverage and increase the damage, 335 B-29s took off to raid on the night of 9–10 March, with 279 of them dropping around 1,700 tons of bombs. Fourteen B-29s were lost. Approximately 16 square miles (41 km²) of the city were destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to have died in the resulting firestorm

Firestorm

A firestorm is a conflagration which attains such intensity that it creates and sustains its own wind system. It is most commonly a natural phenomenon, created during some of the largest bushfires, forest fires, and wildfires....
, more than the immediate deaths of either Hiroshima

Hiroshima

The Japanese city of is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chugoku region of western Honshu, the largest of Japan's islands....
or Nagasaki. The US Strategic Bombing Survey

Strategic bombing survey (Pacific War)

The "Strategic bombing survey " was a United States Army Air Forces report on the impact of strategic bombing in World War II in the Pacific Campaign....
later estimated that nearly 88,000 people died in this one raid, 41,000 were injured, and over a million residents lost their homes. The Tokyo Fire Department estimated a higher toll: 97,000 killed and 125,000 wounded. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department

Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department

The Metropolitan Police Department serves as the police force for the entire Tokyo. Founded in 1874, it is headed by a superintendent general, who is appointed by the National Public Safety Commission and approved by the Prime minister of Japan....
established a figure of 124,711 casualties including both killed and wounded and 286,358 buildings and homes destroyed. Richard Rhodes

Richard Rhodes

Richard Lee Rhodes is an American journalist, historian, and author of both fiction and non-fiction , including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb , and most recently, Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race ....
, historian, put deaths at over 100,000, injuries at a million and homeless residents at a million. These casualty and damage figures could be low: Mark Selden

Mark Selden

Mark Selden is research associate in the East Asia Program at Cornell University. He has also taught history and sociology at Binghamton University....
wrote in Japan Focus

The destruction and damage was at its worst in the city sections east of the Imperial Palace.

Over 50% of Tokyo was destroyed by the end of World War II.

B-29 missions against Tokyo

19 February 1945 119 B-29s hit port and urban area
25 February 1945 174 B-29s dropping incendiaries destroy ~28,000 buildings
4 March 1945 159 B-29s hit urban area
10 March 1945 334 B-29s dropping incendiaries destroy ~267,000 buildings; ~25% of city (Operation Meetinghouse) killing some 100,000 civilians
2 April 1945 >100 B-29s bomb the Nakajima aircraft factory
3 April 1945 68 B-29s bomb the Koizumi aircraft factory and urban areas in Tokyo
7 April 1945 101 B-29s bomb the Nakajima aircraft factory.
13 April 1945 <330 B-29s bomb the arsenal area
15 April 1945 109 B-29s hit urban area
24 May 1945 520 B-29s bomb urban-industrial area south of the Imperial Palace
26 April 1945 464 B-29s bomb urban area immediately south of the Imperial Palace
20 July 1945 1 B-29 drops a Pumpkin bomb
Pumpkin bomb

"Pumpkin bombs" were conventional high explosive aerial bombs developed by the Manhattan Project and used by the United States Army Air Forces against Japan during World War II....
through overcast aiming at but missing the Imperial Palace
8 August 1945 ~60 B-29s bomb the aircraft factory and arsenal
10 August 1945 70 B-29s bomb the arsenal complex

Additional missions against Tokyo targets were carried out by twin-engine bombers and by fighter-bombers.

Aftermath

Damage to Tokyo's heavy industry was slight until firebombing destroyed much of the light industry that was used as an integral source for small machine parts and time-intensive processes. Firebombing also killed or made homeless many workers who had been taking part in war industry. Over 50% of Tokyo's industry was spread out among residential and commercial neighborhoods; firebombing cut their output in half.

Emperor Hirohito

Hirohito

, also known as , was the 124th Emperor of Japan of Japan according to the traditional order, reigning from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989....
's viewing of the destroyed areas of Tokyo in March, 1945, is said to have been the beginning of his personal involvement in the peace process, culminating in Japan's surrender

Surrender of Japan

The surrender of Japan in August 1945 brought World War II to a close. On August 10, 1945, after the Soviet Union Soviet invasion of Manchuria and the United States atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan's leaders at the Supreme War Council decided, in principle, to accept the terms the Allies of World War II had set down...
five months later.

After the war, Tokyo would struggle to rebuild. In 1945/1946, the city received a share of the national reconstruction budget roughly proportional to its amount of bombing damage (26.6%), but in successive years Tokyo saw its share dwindle. By 1949, Tokyo was given only 10.9% of the budget; at the same time there was runaway inflation devaluing those monies as Japan was spending more than it was bringing in from taxes. Occupation authorities such as Joseph Dodge

Joseph Dodge

Joseph Morrell Dodge was a chairman of the Detroit Bank, now Comerica, and later served as an economic advisor for postwar economic stabilization programs in Germany and Japan....
stepped in and drastically cut back on Japanese government rebuilding programs, focusing instead on simply improving roads and transportation. Tokyo would not experience fast economic growth until the 1950s.

Unexploded U.S. bombs were still being found and recovered in Tokyo as late as 2008.

External links

.
, with photo gallery.
.
.
Transcript of a radio documentary/commentary on the Tokyo firebombing with excerpts from interviews with participants and witnesses.*

Bombing of Tokyo in World War II

Doolittle Raid

B-29 raids

B-29 missions against Tokyo

Aftermath

See also

Books

External links