At the end of World War II, the Japanese people experienced the disaster of a war. At that time, American planes flew over Tokyo many times to carry out bombing and incendiary bombs, and Tokyo became a sea of fire at that time, but what was the cause of this air raid on the Japanese mainland? Interested friends may wish to click on the attention, and without further ado, start our story today.
Smoke and smoke are everywhere, and lives are ruined
At that time, Japan under the leadership of Emperor Meiji carried out a vigorous reform. Through the development of science and education to bring artifacts into line with the West and cultivate a large number of new talents, which has made Japan's comprehensive strength continue to rise, but Japan's rapid development wave has not been able to continue continuously, the reason for this is very simple, that is, the country's land and volume have been difficult to support the increasingly explosive population and resource consumption in Japan.
Under heavy pressure, under the aforementioned limited land and resources of Japan, and at the instigation of a group of military personnel, Japan gradually extended its magic hand to China across the sea. At that time, China's vast land and rich resources were unattainable for Japan, which also caused Japan to provoke military friction again and again against China.
However, with the establishment of the domestic anti-Japanese national united front, the forces of all sides were effectively aggregated, and the Japanese army encountered the stubborn resistance of the Chinese regular army at that time on the frontal battlefield, which effectively delayed the pace of Japanese aggression and made its arrogance of destroying China a bubble. Beginning in the 1940s, China's battlefield fell into a phase of strategic stalemate.
At that time, the extremely long supply lines created by the vast land of China made the logistics and transportation of the Japanese army under increasing pressure, and the Japanese military leadership had to find new ideas in the war, in short, to open up a new battlefield outside the Chinese mainland.
At that time, there were roughly two lines of thought in front of the Japanese army, one was to go north to attack the Soviet Union, and the other was to go east into the vast Pacific Ocean to fight the American army. Although the United States was strong at that time, it was not directly involved in the dispute between the two camps in the early stages of the war, and if it was in a "first-mover", it was likely to catch the Americans off guard, and from the perspective of strategic resources, there were many islands in the Pacific ocean that contained a variety of mineral resources that Japan needed to promote the continuation of the war. Therefore, in 1941, Japan sneaked into Pearl Harbor, an important maritime base of the United States in the Pacific Ocean, without declaring war, and the United States and Japan also completely broke up.
Intricate, the United States entered the war
Compared with the pre-war vision, the Japanese obviously found themselves miscalculated after provoking a Pacific war with the United States. First of all, the strength of the Americans is much stronger than they expected, especially in the naval battles where the weapons and equipment are extremely heavy, and the American fighters and aircraft carriers are extremely advanced. In addition, after the United States entered the war, it supported the Allies in a large amount of money and weapons, which undoubtedly doubled the pressure on the Japanese army on the Chinese battlefield, and it seemed that the balance of victory had tilted to the Allies.
Big bombing
However, despite the overwhelming superiority of the United States in terms of record and casualty figures, the toughness of the Japanese in the Pacific theater made the United States obviously suffer. Taking the Battle of Midway and Iwo Jima as an example, although the United States was able to rely on its firepower superiority to achieve obvious suppression before the landing operation, the Japanese were determined to drag them into a short engagement after the Landing of the United States, and under the deformed indoctrination of Bushido, the Japanese soldiers at that time generally had an extreme idea of "jade fragmentation" in their hearts, even after falling into a desperate situation, they had to fight with their opponents for their lives.
When the U.S. military counted casualties after the Battle of Iwo Jima, it was found that this figure was far beyond the pre-war forecast, which also led the U.S. military top brass to decide to come up with a way to end the battle as soon as possible. Bypassing the firefight to bomb the Japanese mainland became an extremely effective option.
In fact, after the beginning of the all-out War of Resistance, Japan carried out extremely fierce bombings against China. When the US military determined the strategy of bombing the Japanese mainland, it meant that they had to endure the suffering of the Chinese people in those years, and in order to ensure the success of the bombing operation again, the US military high command sent an experienced air force officer, General Curtis Limei, as the commander-in-chief of the bombing.
Lee Mei grills, fire attacks Tokyo
Like most U.S. officers, Li Mei was a loyal supporter of the supremacy of firepower, and in his view, everything on the battlefield was pale in the face of absolute fire suppression, so in his original plan, each aircraft should carry as many bombs as possible, and when these bombs fell on the Japanese mainland, they would obviously give them an unprecedented shock, and under the mixture of this shock and fear, it was bound to cause the Japanese side to submit.
Curtis Limei
However, when the bombers were about to set sail, Li Mei found that it was not an easy task to plan to pour a large amount of ammunition on the Japanese mainland. It should be known that the reason why Japan once launched the Chongqing bombing was that it was able to bomb unscrupulously, in addition to the extremely weak Air Defense Firepower of China at that time, but also because most of the large cities along China's southeast coast and the Central Plains had already fallen into Japan's hands. Under these circumstances, Japan could calmly build airstains in these occupied areas for the take-off and landing of bombers. However, at this time, the big man US military obviously did not have such favorable conditions, because the Victory and Defeat in the Pacific Theater was undecided, and most of the islands near the Far East belonged to Japan's sphere of influence, so it was not realistic for bombers to take off from the sea to come to the Japanese mainland.
At that time, although China was an ally of the United States and could facilitate the lifting and lowering of the US military's aircraft, because most of China's southeast coastal cities and central regions were already japanese-occupied areas, the only cities that could provide take-off places for the United States were some cities in the southwest region, but these places were relatively far away from the Japanese mainland due to geographical reasons. This also means that if the aircraft carries a large amount of ammunition for bombing according to the original idea, the weight of the ammunition on the way will inevitably increase the fuel consumption, and when the aircraft completes the mission, it will not be able to return due to fuel shortages, and if the amount of ammunition it carries will weaken the deterrence brought by this bombing to Japan, so that Li Mei is temporarily caught in a dilemma.
Fortunately, with the victory of the American army in the Pacific Theater, they quickly seized control of the Mariana Islands from the Japanese. Although the island is a small island in the Pacific Ocean in terms of size, it has an important strategic position, because it is the closest Pacific island to the Japanese mainland occupied by the US military at that time, and if it takes off from here, the previous problems will be solved.
Soon the U.S. military built an airstrip here that could accommodate multiple bombers. Since 1943, the United States has continuously sent bombers from here to fly to the Japanese mainland for bombing missions. When the US planes came over Tokyo, the Japanese, who were accustomed to frequent good news, were hit by this unprecedented blow without psychological preparation, and the cries and howls spread throughout Tokyo for a while.
A sea of fire
After a more in-depth study of Tokyo, Li Mei decided to use incendiary bombs to attack based on the characteristics of the many wooden houses here. Although the instantaneous damage caused by incendiary bombs is not as good as conventional bombs, its flammable nature is the natural nemesis of wooden houses, and even if the people in the house survive for a while, they are very likely to die under the subsequent fire and suffocation. When the U.S. military used incendiary bombs, Tokyo's state was more like a purgatory on earth. According to statistics, during the approximately two years of bombing in Tokyo commanded by Li Mei, 500,000 Japanese people were directly killed, more than 1 million people were left homeless, and some people called the fire in Tokyo "Li Mei Barbecue".
Some people say that the bombing directed by Li Mei was too cruel, but it is also said that it was precisely because of the bombing of Tokyo that Japan accelerated the process of its unconditional surrender, and Li Mei should naturally be regarded as a hero of human history. What is everyone's view of Li Mei's merits and demerits?
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