Posted on 03/09/2025 6:15:43 AM PDT by DFG
On the night of March 9, 1945, U.S. warplanes launch a new bombing offensive against Japan, dropping 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo over the course of the next 48 hours. Almost 16 square miles in and around the Japanese capital were incinerated, and between 80,000 and 130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded history.
Early on March 9, Air Force crews met on the Mariana Islands of Tinian and Saipan for a military briefing. They were planning a low-level bombing attack on Tokyo that would begin that evening, but with a twist: Their planes would be stripped of all guns except for the tail turret. The decrease in weight would increase the speed of each Superfortress bomber—and would also increase its bomb load capacity by 65 percent, making each plane able to carry more than seven tons.
Speed would be crucial, and the crews were warned that if they were shot down, all haste was to be made for the water, which would increase their chances of being picked up by American rescue crews. Should they land within Japanese territory, they could only expect the very worst treatment by civilians, as the mission that night was going to entail the deaths of tens of thousands of those very same civilians.
The cluster bombing of the downtown Tokyo suburb of Shitamachi had been approved only a few hours earlier. Shitamachi was composed of roughly 750,000 people living in cramped quarters in wooden-frame buildings. Setting ablaze this “paper city” was a kind of experiment in the effects of firebombing; it would also destroy the light industries, called “shadow factories,” that produced prefabricated war materials destined for Japanese aircraft factories.
The denizens of Shitamachi never had a chance of defending themselves. Their fire brigades were hopelessly undermanned, poorly trained and poorly equipped. At 5:34 p.m., Superfortress B-29 bombers took off from Saipan and Tinian, reaching their target at 12:15 a.m. on March 10. Three hundred and thirty-four bombers, flying at a mere 500 feet, dropped their loads, creating a giant bonfire fanned by 30-knot winds that helped raze Shitamachi and spread the flames throughout Tokyo. Masses of panicked and terrified Japanese civilians scrambled to escape the inferno, most unsuccessfully. The human carnage was so great that the blood-red mists and stench of burning flesh that wafted up sickened the bomber pilots, forcing them to grab oxygen masks to keep from vomiting.
The raid lasted slightly longer than three hours—and continued again the next day. “In the black Sumida River, countless bodies were floating, clothed bodies, naked bodies, all black as charcoal. It was unreal,” recorded one doctor at the scene.
Operation Meetinghouse (March 9-10 Tokyo firebombing raid) ordinance consisted mostly of 500-pound cluster bombs which released 38 napalm-carrying incendiary bomblets dropped at 5000-7000 feet.
> The sad part was that many of the war criminals were never punished. <
True that. I guess the Allies were more concerned about the Soviet Union (and the Cold War) than getting justice for the victims.
Too often this was the case:
- The Nazi monster is sentenced to death, or life imprisonment.
- The sentence is reduced to a small number of years.
- The Nazi monster is soon released for “health reasons”.
- The Nazi monster then lives a long life in freedom.
Schweinfurt. Crippled the 8th Air Force. 376 heavy bombers, 155 destroyed or seriously damaged. 557 men didn't make it back; 7 came back dead, 21 wounded. 5 escorts lost. August 77, 1943. That raid included a companion attack on Regensburg.
The Americans tried again at Scheinfurt October 14, again with disastrous results. 291 B-17s, 198 lost or damaged.
I can see why the Germans would have wanted the American to continue to target the ball bearing plants.
Japanese houses didn't have those.
No, it wasn't.
> Schweinfurt. Crippled the 8th Air Force. <
I could be wrong, but I think the key there is the year, 1943. The Allies did not have effective long-range fighter escorts until early in 1944.
So before then, our bombers got mauled wherever they went.
“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”. Well, I guess he was right.
The Japanese attack on the US was the biggest military blunder in history, and the consequence was it led to a much more rapid victory in all theaters of war. US industrial production was turned nearly entirely to the war effort and that output exceeded all other nations combined, if memory serves.
Not only the biggest military blunder, their attack is probably in the top five blunders of any kind. :^)
Doolittle’s Raid just a couple of months later was, on paper, of little consequence, but it did two things — one, it humiliated the Japanese, and two, it dawned on them that they couldn’t hit our industries (most of which were on the east half or even third of the continent) and that all of their cities and industry were either on the coast or not far inland. Sitting ducks.
The US’ relatively tiny submarine fleet went to work hitting Japanese shipping. Borneo had all kinds of things the Japanese needed, but the US never put boots on the ground there. Didn’t need to. The War Dep’t wouldn’t credit sinkings without verification from another US source, and recorded 8 million tons of Japanese shipping sunk. The Japanese recorded 11 million tons. They couldn’t get raw materials to their factories or supply their shipyards.
The B29 was developed quickly, but didn’t emerge in production until early in 1944. The total run was in the ballpark of 4,000. Single raids on Japan sometimes exceeded 1,000 B29s arriving at basically the same time. Before Hiroshima, 45 Japanese cities were incinerated using incendiary bombing.
Except those working to produce and provide the food and supplies for the combatants are not really innocents.
Beautiful. God bless Truman and the American military.
> “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” <
Some clever person once remarked that Yamamoto’s big mistake was studying at elitist Harvard while he was in America (1919 - 1921).
Had he picked the University of Georgia, he would have seen the real America and the real Americans. Best not to be messing with those good ol’ boys.
Sorry, they were not innocent.
Quote from a WWII veteran overhearing someone say that `You can’t
bomb an ideology.”
“The hell you can’t. Because we did it. These Muslims are no different
than the Imperial Japanese. The Japs had their suicide bombers too.
And we stopped them. What it takes is the resolve and will to use
a level of brutality and violence that your generations can’t
stomach. And until you can, this shit won’t stop. It took us on the
beaches with bullets, clearing out caves with flame throwers, and
men like LeMay burning down their cities killing people by the tens
of thousands. And then it took 2 atom bombs on top of it. But if
that was what it took to win we were willing to do it. Until you
are willing to do the same...well I hope you enjoy this shit, because
it ain’t going to stop.”
— NKP_VET, FreeRepublic.com
What??? How was Japan not having air raid shelters its people our fault? Ever seen pictures of London or Berlin?
> The Japanese attack on the US was the biggest military blunder in history… <
But to defend the Japanese (kinda), most wars before then ended in a negotiated settlement. The winner would gain some land, and the loser would lose some land. That’s exactly what Tojo expected to happen.
Tojo even had a list of demands ready for when the United States decided to sue for peace.
Say what you want about FDR. He was a terrible president domestically. But to his great credit, he wasn’t at all interested in playing Tojo’s game.
To quote Mao, “Peace comes out of the end of a rifle barrel.” It is estimated he killed 80 million of his own people, historians can only guess the number.
And Yamamoto knew it.
If he had picked Georgia, he probably would have stayed. No war.
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