Bombing of Tokyo
Air raids by the US Army Air Forces in World War II / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Bombing of Tokyo (東京大空襲, Tōkyōdaikūshū) was a series of bombing air raids launched by the United States Army Air Forces during World War II.
Bombing of Tokyo | |||||||
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Part of the air raids on Japan during the Pacific War | |||||||
Tokyo burns under B-29 firebomb assault, 26 May 1945. | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
United States | Japan |
The raids that were conducted by the U.S. military on the night of 9–10 March 1945, codenamed Operation Meetinghouse, are the single most destructive bombing raid in human history.[1] 16 square miles (41 km2; 10,000 acres) of central Tokyo was destroyed, leaving an estimated 100,000 civilians dead and over one million homeless.[1] The atomic bombing of Hiroshima in August 1945, by comparison, resulted in the immediate death of an estimated 70,000 to 150,000 people.
The U.S. mounted the Doolittle Raid, a seaborne, small-scale air raid on Tokyo in April 1942. Strategic bombing and urban area bombing began in 1944 after the long-range B-29 Superfortress bomber entered service, first deployed from China and thereafter the Mariana Islands. B-29 raids from those islands began on 17 November 1944, and lasted until 15 August 1945, the day of Japanese surrender.[2]
Over half of Tokyo's industry was spread out among residential and commercial neighborhoods; firebombing cut the city's output in half.[3] Some modern post-war analysts have called the raid a war crime due to the targeting of civilian infrastructure and the ensuing mass loss of civilian life.[4][5]