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The was a series of
firebombing Firebombing is a bombing technique designed to damage a target, generally an urban area, through the use of fire, caused by incendiary devices, rather than from the blast effect of large bombs. In popular usage, any act in which an incendiary ...
air raids by the
United States Army Air Force The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
during the Pacific campaigns of World War II.
Operation Meetinghouse On the night of 9/10 March 1945, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) conducted a devastating firebombing raid on Tokyo, the Japanese capital city. This attack was code-named Operation Meetinghouse by the USAAF and is known as the Great To ...
, which was conducted on the night of 9–10 March 1945, is the single most destructive bombing raid in human history. of central
Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
were destroyed, leaving an estimated 100,000 civilians dead and over one million homeless. In comparison, the atomic bombing of Nagasaki resulted in the immediate death of between 39,000 and 80,000 people. The US first mounted a seaborne, small-scale air raid on Tokyo (the "Doolittle Raid") in April 1942.
Strategic bombing Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in total war with the goal of defeating the enemy by destroying its morale, its economic ability to produce and transport materiel to the theatres of military operations, or both. It is a systematica ...
and urban
area bombing In military aviation, area bombardment (or area bombing) is a type of aerial bombardment in which bombs are dropped over the general area of a target. The term "area bombing" came into prominence during World War II. Area bombing is a form of st ...
began in 1944 after the long-range
B-29 Superfortress The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is an American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the B-17 Fl ...
bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching aerial torpedo, torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped ...
entered service, first deployed from
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
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 The surrender of the Empire of Japan in World War II was announced by Emperor Hirohito on 15 August and formally signed on 2 September 1945, bringing the war's hostilities to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy ...
. Over 50% of Tokyo's industry was spread out among residential and commercial neighborhoods; firebombing cut the whole city's output in half.United States Strategic Bombing Survey
''Summary Report (Pacific War)''
p. 18.
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.


Doolittle Raid

The first raid on Tokyo was the
Doolittle Raid The Doolittle Raid, also known as the Tokyo Raid, was an air raid on 18 April 1942 by the United States on the Japanese capital Tokyo and other places on Honshu during World War II. It was the first American air operation to strike the Japan ...
of 18 April 1942, when sixteen
B-25 Mitchell The North American B-25 Mitchell is an American medium bomber that was introduced in 1941 and named in honor of Major General William "Billy" Mitchell, a pioneer of U.S. military aviation. Used by many Allied air forces, the B-25 served in ...
s were launched from to attack targets including
Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...
and Tokyo and then fly on to airfields in China. The raid was retaliation against the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...
. The raid did little damage to Japan's war capability but was a significant propaganda victory for the United States. Launched at longer range than planned when the task force encountered a Japanese picket boat, all of the attacking aircraft either crashed or
ditched In aviation, a water landing is, in the broadest sense, an Landing, aircraft landing on a body of water. Seaplanes, such as floatplanes and flying boats, land on water as a normal operation. Ditching is a controlled emergency landing on the ...
short of the airfields designated for landing. One aircraft landed in the neutral
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
where the crew was interned, but then smuggled over the border into Iran on 11 May 1943. Two crews were captured by the Japanese in occupied China. Three crewmen from these groups were later executed.


B-29 raids

The key development for the bombing of Japan was the
B-29 Superfortress The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is an American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the B-17 Fl ...
strategic bomber A strategic bomber is a medium- to long-range penetration bomber aircraft designed to drop large amounts of air-to-ground weaponry onto a distant target for the purposes of debilitating the enemy's capacity to wage war. Unlike tactical bombers, ...
, which had an operational range of and was capable of attacking at high altitude above , where enemy defenses were very weak. Almost 90% of the bombs dropped on the home islands of Japan were delivered by this type of bomber. Once Allied ground forces had captured islands sufficiently close to Japan, airfields were built on those islands (particularly
Saipan Saipan ( ch, Sa’ipan, cal, Seipél, formerly in es, Saipán, and in ja, 彩帆島, Saipan-tō) is the largest island of the Northern Mariana Islands, a Commonwealth (U.S. insular area), commonwealth of the United States in the western Pa ...
and
Tinian Tinian ( or ; old Japanese name: 天仁安島, ''Tenian-shima'') is one of the three principal islands of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Together with uninhabited neighboring Aguiguan, it forms Tinian Municipality, one of the ...
) and B-29s could reach Japan for bombing missions. The initial raids were carried out by the
Twentieth Air Force The Twentieth Air Force (Air Forces Strategic) (20th AF) is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC). It is headquartered at Francis E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming. 20 AF's primary mission is Interco ...
operating out of mainland China in
Operation Matterhorn Operation Matterhorn was a military operation of the United States Army Air Forces in World War II for the strategic bombing of Japanese forces by B-29 Superfortresses based in India and China. Targets included Japan itself, and Japanese bases ...
under
XX Bomber Command The XX Bomber Command was a United States Army Air Forces bomber formation. Its last assignment was with Twentieth Air Force, based on Okinawa. It was inactivated on 16 July 1945. History The idea of basing Boeing B-29 Superfortresses in ...
, but these could not reach Tokyo. Operations from the
Northern Mariana Islands The Northern Mariana Islands, officially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI; ch, Sankattan Siha Na Islas Mariånas; cal, Commonwealth Téél Falúw kka Efáng llól Marianas), is an unincorporated territory and commonw ...
commenced in November 1944 after the
XXI Bomber Command The XXI Bomber Command was a unit of the Twentieth Air Force in the Mariana Islands for strategic bombing during World War II. The command was established at Smoky Hill Army Air Field, Kansas on 1 March 1944. After a period of organization an ...
was activated there. The high-altitude bombing attacks using general-purpose bombs were observed to be ineffective by USAAF leaders due to high winds—later discovered to be the
jet stream Jet streams are fast flowing, narrow, meandering thermal wind, air currents in the Atmosphere of Earth, atmospheres of some planets, including Earth. On Earth, the main jet streams are located near the altitude of the tropopause and are west ...
—which carried the bombs off target. Between May and September 1943, bombing trials were conducted on the Japanese Village set-piece target, located at the
Dugway Proving Grounds Dugway Proving Ground (DPG) is a U.S. Army facility established in 1942 to test biological and chemical weapons, located about southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, and south of the Utah Test and Training Range. Location Dugway Pr ...
. These trials demonstrated the effectiveness of
incendiary bombs Incendiary weapons, incendiary devices, incendiary munitions, or incendiary bombs are weapons designed to start fires or destroy sensitive equipment using fire (and sometimes used as anti-personnel weaponry), that use materials such as napalm, th ...
against wood-and-paper buildings, and resulted in
Curtis LeMay Curtis Emerson LeMay (November 15, 1906 – October 1, 1990) was an American Air Force general who implemented a controversial strategic bombing campaign in the Pacific theater of World War II. He later served as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air ...
's ordering the bombers to change tactics to utilize these munitions against Japan. The first such raid was against
Kobe Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, whic ...
on 4 February 1945. Tokyo was hit by incendiaries on 25 February 1945 when 174 B-29s flew a high altitude raid during daylight hours and destroyed around (2.6 km2) of the snow-covered city, using 453.7 tons of mostly incendiaries with some fragmentation bombs. After this raid, LeMay ordered the B-29 bombers to attack again but at a relatively low altitude of and at night, because Japan's anti-aircraft artillery defenses were weakest in this altitude range, and the fighter defenses were ineffective at night. LeMay ordered all defensive guns but the tail gun removed from the B-29s so that the aircraft would be lighter and use less fuel.


Operation Meetinghouse

On the night of 9–10 March 1945, 334 B-29s took off to raid with 279 of them dropping 1,665 tons of bombs on Tokyo. The bombs were mostly the E-46 cluster bomb which released 38
napalm Napalm is an incendiary mixture of a gelling agent and a volatile petrochemical (usually gasoline (petrol) or diesel fuel). The name is a portmanteau of two of the constituents of the original thickening and gelling agents: coprecipitated alu ...
-carrying M-69 incendiary bomblets at an altitude of . The M-69s punched through thin roofing material or landed on the ground; in either case they ignited 3–5 seconds later, throwing out a jet of flaming napalm globs. A lesser number of M-47 incendiaries were also dropped: the M-47 was a jelled-gasoline and white phosphorus bomb which ignited upon impact. In the first two hours of the raid, 226 of the attacking aircraft unloaded their bombs to overwhelm the city's fire defenses. The first B-29s to arrive dropped bombs in a large X pattern centered in Tokyo's densely populated working class district near the docks in both
Koto Koto may refer to: * Koto (band), an Italian synth pop group * Koto (instrument), a Japanese musical instrument * Koto (kana), a ligature of two Japanese katakana * Koto (traditional clothing), a traditional dress made by Afro-Surinamese women * K ...
and Chūō city wards on the water; later aircraft simply aimed near this flaming X. The individual fires caused by the bombs joined to create a general
conflagration A conflagration is a large fire. Conflagrations often damage human life, animal life, health, and/or property. A conflagration can begin accidentally, be naturally caused (wildfire), or intentionally created (arson). A very large fire can produc ...
, which would have been classified as a
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 and wildfires. Although the term has been used ...
but for prevailing winds gusting at . Approximately of the city were destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to have died. A grand total of 282 of the 339 B-29s launched for "Meetinghouse" made it to the target, 27 of which were lost due to being shot down by Japanese air defenses, mechanical failure, or being caught in updrafts caused by the fires. The Operation Meetinghouse firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9 March 1945 was the single deadliest air raid of World War II, greater than
Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...
,
Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...
, Hiroshima, or Nagasaki as single events.


Results

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 taken part in the war industry. Over 50% of Tokyo's industry was spread out among residential and commercial neighborhoods; firebombing cut the whole city's output in half. The destruction and damage were especially severe in the eastern areas of the city. The districts bombed were home to 1.2 million people. Tokyo police recorded 267,171 buildings destroyed, which left more than one million people homeless. Emperor Hirohito's tour of the destroyed areas of Tokyo in March 1945 was the beginning of his personal involvement in the peace process, culminating in
Japan's surrender The surrender of the Empire of Japan in World War II was announced by Emperor Hirohito on 15 August and formally signed on 2 September 1945, bringing the war's hostilities to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy ...
six months later.


Casualty estimates

The US Strategic Bombing Survey 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 The serves as the prefectural police department of Tokyo Metropolis. 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. The Tokyo Metro ...
established a figure of 83,793 dead and 40,918 wounded and 286,358 buildings and homes destroyed. Historian
Richard Rhodes Richard Lee Rhodes (born July 4, 1937) is an American historian, journalist, and author of both fiction and non-fiction, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning ''The Making of the Atomic Bomb'' (1986), and most recently, ''Energy: A Human Histor ...
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 (born 1938) is a coordinator of the open-access journal ''The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus'', a senior research associate in the East Asia Program at Cornell University, and Bartle Professor of History and Sociology at Binghamton Un ...
wrote in '' Japan Focus'': In his 1968 book, reprinted in 1990, historian
Gabriel Kolko Gabriel Morris Kolko (August 17, 1932 – May 19, 2014) was an American historian. His research interests included American capitalism and political history, the Progressive Era, and U.S. foreign policy in the 20th century. One of the best-known ...
cited a figure of 125,000 deaths. Elise K. Tipton, professor of Japan studies, arrived at a rough range of 75,000 to 200,000 deaths. Donald L. Miller, citing
Knox Burger Knox Breckenridge Burger (November 1, 1922 – January 4, 2010) was an editor, writer, and literary agent who lived in New York City. He published Kurt Vonnegut's first short-story and with his wife he founded Knox Burger & Associates, a literary ag ...
, stated that there were "at least 100,000" Japanese deaths and "about one million" injured. The entire bombing campaign against Japan killed more than 300,000 people and injured an additional 400,000, mostly civilians.


Postwar recovery

After the war, Tokyo struggled to rebuild. In 1945 and 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 the money. Occupation authorities such as
Joseph Dodge Joseph Morrell Dodge (November 18, 1890 – December 2, 1964) was a chairman of the Detroit Bank, now Comerica. He later served as an economic adviser for postwar economic stabilization programs in Germany and Japan, headed the American delegation ...
stepped in and drastically cut back on Japanese government rebuilding programs, focusing instead on simply improving roads and transportation. Tokyo did not experience fast economic growth until the 1950s.


Memorials

Between 1948 and 1951 the ashes of 105,400 people killed in the attacks on Tokyo were interred in Yokoamicho Park in Sumida Ward. A memorial to the raids was opened in the park in March 2001. The park has a list of names of people who died of the Bombing, which is made based on the applications from bereaved families and it has 81,273 names as of March 2020. Bereaved families can submit application to have the names of victims written in the list to the government of
Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
. After the war, Japanese author Katsumoto Saotome, a survivor of 10 March 1945 firebombing, helped start a library about the raid in Koto Ward called the
Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage The is a museum in Tokyo, Japan that presents information and artifacts related to the bombing of Tokyo during World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from ...
. The library contains documents and literature about the raid plus survivor accounts collected by Saotome and the Association to Record the Tokyo Air Raid.


Postwar Japanese politics

In 2013, during Japanese Prime Minister
Shinzō Abe Shinzo Abe ( ; ja, 安倍 晋三, Hepburn: , ; 21 September 1954 – 8 July 2022) was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 20 ...
's second term, Abe's cabinet stated that the raids were "incompatible with
humanitarianism Humanitarianism is an active belief in the value of human life, whereby humans practice benevolent treatment and provide assistance to other humans to reduce suffering and improve the conditions of humanity for moral, altruistic, and emotional ...
, which is one of the foundations of international law", but also noted that it is difficult to argue that the raids were illegal under the international laws of the time. In 2007, 112 members of the Association for the Bereaved Families of the Victims of the Tokyo Air Raids brought a class action against the Japanese government, demanding an apology and 1.232 billion yen in compensation. Their suit charged that the Japanese government invited the raid by failing to end the war earlier, and then failed to help the civilian victims of the raids while providing considerable support to former military personnel and their families. The plaintiffs' case was dismissed at the first judgement in December 2009, and their appeal was rejected. The plaintiffs then appealed to the
Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
, which rejected their case in May 2013.


Partial list of missions


B-29

* 24 November 1944: 111 B-29s hit an aircraft factory on the rim of the city. * 27 November 1944: 81 B-29s hit the dock and urban area and 13
targets of opportunity A target of opportunity is a target "visible to a surface or air sensor or observer, which is within range of available weapons and against which fire has not been scheduled or requested." A target of opportunity comes in two forms; "unplanned" and ...
. * 29–30 November 1944: two incendiary raids on industrial areas, burning 2,773 structures. * 19 February 1945: 119 B-29s hit port and urban area. * 24 February 1945: 229 B-29s plus over 1600 carrier-based planes. * 25 February 1945: 174 B-29s dropping incendiaries destroy 28,000 buildings. * 4 March 1945: 159 B-29s hit urban area.U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II: Combat Chronology. ''March 1945''.
Air Force Historical Studies Office. Retrieved 3 March 2009.
* 10 March 1945: 334 B-29s dropping incendiaries destroy 267,000 buildings; 25% of city ''(Operation Meetinghouse)'' killing some 100,000. * 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 again * 13 April 1945: 327 B-29s bomb the arsenal area. * 20 July 1945: 1 B-29 drops a
Pumpkin bomb Pumpkin bombs were conventional aerial bombs developed by the Manhattan Project and used by the United States Army Air Forces against Japan during World War II. It was a close replication of the Fat Man plutonium bomb with the same ballistic an ...
(bomb with same ballistics as the
Fat Man "Fat Man" (also known as Mark III) is the codename for the type of nuclear bomb the United States detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. It was the second of the only two nuclear weapons ever used in warfare, the fir ...
nuclear bomb) through overcast. It was aimed at, but missed, 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.


Other

16–17 February 1945:
carrier-based aircraft Carrier-based aircraft, sometimes known as carrier-capable aircraft or carrier-borne aircraft, are naval aircraft designed for operations from aircraft carriers. They must be able to launch in a short distance and be sturdy enough to withstand ...
, including
dive bomber A dive bomber is a bomber aircraft that dives directly at its targets in order to provide greater accuracy for the bomb it drops. Diving towards the target simplifies the bomb's trajectory and allows the pilot to keep visual contact througho ...
s, escorted by Hellcat fighters attacked Tokyo. Over two days, over 1,500 American planes and hundreds of Japanese planes were in the air. "By the end of 17 February, more than five hundred Japanese planes, both on the ground and in the air, had been lost, and Japan's aircraft works had been badly hit. The Americans lost eighty planes." 18 August 1945: The last U.S. air combat casualty of World War II occurred during mission 230 A-8, when two
Consolidated B-32 Dominator The Consolidated B-32 Dominator (Consolidated Model 34) was an American heavy strategic bomber built for United States Army Air Forces during World War II, which had the distinction of being the last Allied aircraft to be engaged in combat duri ...
s of the 386th Bomb Squadron, 312th Bomb Group, launched from
Yontan Airfield Yontan Airfield (also known as Yomitan Auxiliary Airfield) is a former military airfield located near Yomitan Village on the west coast of Okinawa. It was closed in July 1996 and turned over to the Japanese government in December 2006. Today it i ...
, Okinawa, for a photo reconnaissance run over
Tokyo, Japan Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...
. Both bombers were attacked by several Japanese fighters of both the 302nd Naval Air Group at Atsugi and the
Yokosuka is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city has a population of 409,478, and a population density of . The total area is . Yokosuka is the 11th most populous city in the Greater Tokyo Area, and the 12th in the Kantō region. The city ...
Air Group that made 10 gunnery passes. Japanese
IJNAS The was the air arm of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). The organization was responsible for the operation of naval aircraft and the conduct of aerial warfare in the Pacific War. The Japanese military acquired their first aircraft in 1910 a ...
ace An ace is a playing card, die or domino with a single pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the c ...
s Sadamu Komachi and
Saburō Sakai was a Japanese naval aviator and flying ace (''"Gekitsui-O"'', ) of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. Sakai had 28–64 aerial victories, including shared ones, according to official Japanese records, but his autobiography, ''Samura ...
were part of this attack. The B-32 piloted by 1st Lt. John R. Anderson, was hit at 20,000 feet; cannon fire knocked out the number two (port inner) engine, and three crew were injured, including Sgt. Anthony J. Marchione, 19, of the 20th Reconnaissance Squadron, who took a 20 mm hit to the chest and died 30 minutes later. Tail gunner Sgt. John Houston destroyed one attacker. The lead bomber,
Consolidated B-32-20-CF Dominator The Consolidated B-32 Dominator (Consolidated Model 34) was an American heavy strategic bomber built for United States Army Air Forces during World War II, which had the distinction of being the last Allied aircraft to be engaged in combat dur ...
, ''42-108532'', "Hobo Queen II", piloted by 1st Lt. James Klein, was not seriously damaged but the second
Consolidated B-32-35-CF Dominator The Consolidated B-32 Dominator (Consolidated Model 34) was an American heavy strategic bomber built for United States Army Air Forces during World War II, which had the distinction of being the last Allied aircraft to be engaged in combat duri ...
, ''42-108578'', lost an engine, had the upper turret knocked out of action, and partially lost rudder control. Both bombers landed at Yontan Airfield just past ~1800 hrs. having survived the last air combat of the Pacific war. The following day, propellers were removed from Japanese aircraft as part of the surrender agreement. Marchione was buried on Okinawa on 19 August, his body being returned to his
Pottstown, Pennsylvania Pottstown is a borough in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Pottstown was laid out in 1752–53 and named Pottsgrove in honor of its founder, John Potts. The old name was abandoned at the time of the incorporation as a borough in 1815. In 1888 ...
home on 18 March 1949. He was interred in St. Aloysius Old Cemetery with full military honors. "Hobo Queen II" was dismantled at Yonton Airfield following a 9 September nosegear collapse and damage during lifting. B-32, ''42-108578'', was scrapped at Kingman, Arizona after the war.1942 USAAF Serial Numbers (42-91974 to 42-110188)
Joebaugher.com. Retrieved on 5 August 2010.


See also

*
Strategic bombing during World War II World War II (1939–1945) involved sustained strategic bombing of railways, harbours, cities, workers' and civilian housing, and industrial districts in enemy territory. Strategic bombing as a military strategy is distinct both from close ...
*
Evacuations of civilians in Japan during World War II About 8.5 million Japanese civilians were displaced from their homes between 1943 and 1945 as a result of air raids on Japan by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) during World War II. These evacuations started in December 1943 as a voluntar ...


References


Further reading

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


External links


67 Japanese cities firebombed in World War II




* Transcript of a radio documentary/commentary on the Tokyo firebombing with excerpts from interviews with participants and witnesses. * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tokyo World War II aerial operations and battles of the Pacific theatre Aerial operations and battles of World War II by town or city Japan in World War II World War II strategic bombing of Japan 1940s conflicts History of Tokyo Japan campaign Firebombings in Japan 1940s in Tokyo Japan–United States military relations