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.
In my post #37, I mentioned the demands Tojo had ready for when the United States decided to sue for peace.
Tojo was quite the optimist! Here are his demands (from Wikipedia’s entry on Tojo):
Japan would keep what it already had, and would assume control of the following territories:
- British Crown colonies of India and Honduras as well as the British dominions of Australia, Australian New Guinea, Ceylon, New Zealand, British Columbia and the Yukon Territory
- the American state of Washington and the American territories of Alaska and Hawaii
- most of Latin America including Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti and the rest of the West Indies
“The atomic bombs saved millions of Japanese lives.” They likely saved a whole lot of American lives as well. My dad was in the Army Air Corps in Europe. When his stint finally ended (he said they kept increasing the “points” needed to fulfill one’s tour) he was asked to volunteer for continued service in the Pacific theater. He wasn’t told any details — or anything at all. He signed on mainly for the $10,000 incentive. And then Hiroshima and Nagasaki . . . He got to keep the $10,000.
With the exception of the young and very old there are no innocents. The civilians manufacture the machines of war and grow the food for the war machine. Innocents are killed. War is nasty ugly business and should be avoided if possible. If not possible one must go to total war. It is not pretty.
Something had to break the hold the Japanese Army and Navy had over Japan. Bringing the war to the normal Japanese citizen was really the only way. They had to see the same kind of horror and killing that their Army and Navy put to the rest of the world.
Perhaps, for a short period of time, iow, until April 1943. I doubt that he really had any second thoughts about anything he did, because the military leadership was arrogant and racialist.
Had Japan finished off what was left of the European powers in the region, then occupied Australia (they could have accomplished that), there would not have been a staging area if the US were then brought into the war. Whoops.
Are you saying that the U.S. continued bombing of Japan, including two nuclear bombs, 5 months after Japan surrendered? Who knew.
Is “a rifle behind every blade of grass” a true statement by Yamamoto? I heard both yes and no. That and he saw the industrial might of the US when he studied here.
You are absolutely correct. Once your country chooses to go to war, you’re no longer an innocent civilian, willing or not. You are de facto a part of the war machine.
FAFO used to be US military policy.
I saw one estimate that the Japanese economy continued to grow (off recycling to some extent) after 1941, something like fivefold.
The US economy was larger to start with, and grew eightfold.
If the Japanese wanted to get at our industries, they’d have had to successfully landed a substantial force on our west coast and try to sustain them as they fought through the mountains etc. Hopeless.
“Is “a rifle behind every blade of grass” a true statement by Yamamoto? I heard both yes and no. That and he saw the industrial might of the US when he studied here.”
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Yamamoto never made such a statement, at least not in public. He did, however, warn the Tojo government not to go to war against the U.S., because of our enormous industrial potential and huge resource base. He told them that he could “run wild for 6 months” after initiating war, but after that Japan would start to lose. Ironically, the Battle of the Coral Sea took place 5 months later and resulted in 2 carriers lost for Japan, and Midway was 6 months later and broke the Japanese Navy’s back by putting 5 more of their carriers on the bottom of the ocean.
Pictorial History of the 444th Bombardment Group.
Everyone thinks of airfields in the Mariana Islands, but the road to those later bases was a long one.
Exactly. I read the full US report on the bombing and concluded that they targeted the residential areas of Tokyo because houses were made of wood and would catch fire much faster (and then the fire would spread to the manufacturing area), whereas bombing the manufacturing areas directly would do less damage. After the war they took fotos of six small home factories to claim that the residential area was mixed use.
If you think setting fire to children because the fire will spread to combatants is acceptable then you will love the bombing of Tokyo.
Exactly. I read the full US report on the bombing and concluded that they targeted the residential areas of Tokyo because houses were made of wood and would catch fire much faster (and then the fire would spread to the manufacturing area), whereas bombing the manufacturing areas directly would do less damage. After the war they took fotos of six small home factories to claim that the residential area was mixed use.
If you think setting fire to children because the fire will spread to combatants is acceptable then you will love the firebombing of Tokyo.
Before the B-29’s could bomb Japan, the Army Air Forces had to win the “Battle of Kansas” or “Battle of Wichita” in early 1944.
“History has recorded the Battle of Kansas as an all-out effort by the US Army Air Forces to get a combat-ready fleet of B-29s overseas to bomb Japan and destroy the factories that fueled its war effort. The battle to renovate the B-29s was fought on Kansas Air Fields in March and April 1944 in the teeth of raging blizzards.”
https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=230188
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0212b29/
You don’t understand total war and we did.
Why didn’t we target the Japanese leadership? Surely we knew where they were. Wouldn’t that have been more humane?
Had we targeted the Emperor the people would fight like maniacs. He was their God.
Not the Emperor. The generals and other big shots.
“They likely saved a whole lot of American lives as well.”
Yes they did.
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