The Air Raids Over Japan during World War II: The History of the Allies’ Bombing Campaigns on the Japanese Mainland

The Americans would turn the war in the Pacific around in the middle of 1942, but in the wake of Pearl Harbor and the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, the country was in desperate need of a morale boost, and it would come in the form of the Doolittle Raid. In part to show that the Japanese were not invincible, and in part to reassure the American public that the nation would not lose the war, the Doolittle Raid included both Army and Navy units that launched 16 land-based medium bombers from an aircraft carrier, a feat that was the first of its kind but also one involving a great deal of risk. Getting the bombers and carriers in place to execute the mission involved much strategic planning and cooperation within the American military, and had it failed, it could have dealt a serious blow to the Americans’ Pacific presence due to the nation’s limited resources in that theater.

The first serious air raids over Japan came in November 1944, after the Americans had captured the Marianas Islands, and through February 1945, American bombers concentrated on military targets at the fringes of the city, particularly air defenses. However, the air raids of March 1945, and particularly on the night of March 9, were a different story altogether. In what is generally referred to as strategic or area bombing, waves of bombers flew low over Tokyo for over two and a half hours, dropping incendiary bombs with the intention of producing a massive firestorm. The American raids intended to produce fires that would kill soldiers and civilians, as well as the munitions factories and apartment buildings of those who worked in them. 325 B-29s headed toward Tokyo, and nearly 300 of them dropped bombs on it. Additional raids, this time largely on the north and west, came in April, and in May, raids hit Ginza and the south. Altogether, American bombers flew more than 4,000 missions over Tokyo before surrender.

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