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One of the wildest revenge battles in American history, ten months of bombing, 160,000 tons of incendiary bombs were dropped on nearly 100 cities in Japan, 1/3 of the houses were destroyed, millions of people were homeless, and hundreds of thousands of people became coke, and the degree of damage even exceeded the two little fat men dropped later.
The fierce attack of the US army on Tokyo has become a classic of strategic bombing and has also been recorded in the annals of human war.
Since the 30s of the last century, most of Japan's heavy industry raw materials have been imported from the United States, constantly sending wealth to the United States, so why did the United States bomb Japan so furiously?
We take you through how the U.S. military created this earth-shattering bombing of Japan.
Japan ambition
As an island country, Japan has a small land area and a small population, and it is completely impossible for Japan to rely on its own domestic self-sufficiency. Therefore, in order to stock up on more war-ready materials for itself, after World War I, Japan began to buy raw materials from the United States in large quantities.
But by 1940, the United States sensed Japan's ambitions and began to control its procurement resources. The behavior of the United States has very annoyed Japan, knowing that Japan has always been a resource-poor country and relies on imports for many raw materials.
Therefore, in order to obtain more resources, he began his crazy plundering, and to Japan's surprise, this is also leading them to the abyss.
As early as 1937, when Japan fought against China, it looked at China's abundant resources, but China was very poor at that time, and even if it occupied land, it was difficult to convert it into usable resources in a short time.
Moreover, the resistance of the Chinese people also cost Japan a lot of human and financial resources. At this time, Japan turned its spearhead to the British and American colonies in Southeast Asia, and this practice angered the Western powers, and the United States, Britain, and the Netherlands directly froze Japan's assets in their own countries.
The vicious Japan not only did not stop, but quietly created another conspiracy.
On December 7, 1941, in order to realize Japan's dream of world domination, more than 300 planes took off from Japanese aircraft carriers and directly hit Pearl Harbor, the US naval base.
Under the indiscriminate bombardment of the Japanese army, many US warships were sunk or damaged, more than 180 aircraft were destroyed, and the raid lasted for more than 90 minutes, causing the US troops to suffer serious losses.
The war plunged the United States into hysterical rage, and Roosevelt directly ordered war on Japan and began to plan "retaliation", which also led the United States to directly enter World War II.
In order to let the arrogant Japan learn the lesson it deserves, the United States has sent 16 B25 bombers to bomb industrial and military bases in Tokyo and many cities, but because the bombers are not powerful enough, after a few rounds, the blow to Japan is almost insignificant.
Moreover, in the subsequent confrontations, the US military was often at a disadvantage in the confrontation with the Japanese navy due to its lack of technology, and it was never possible to form the conditions for strategic bombing of Tokyo. This also made the Japanese army more arrogant.
The US military failed several operations, which made the United States fully aware of its shortcomings, decided to lie down and try the courage, began to invest a lot of money in the development of new fighters, and reused all the factories that had been silent for a long time, and in a short period of time, all energy was devoted to military construction.
Obviously, while Japan's attack made the United States feel humiliated, it also made the United States feel an unprecedented sense of crisis, a small Japan can come to raid, how can the powerful US military sit still and swallow this evil breath.
The United States strikes back
In the face of the tense war situation, the famous American General Curtis LeMay was appointed commander of the US 21st Bomber Force.
Curtis Leme
He carefully examined the terrain and wind direction of Japan, and found that most of the Japanese buildings were made of wood, and after some deliberation, a cruel plan came to mind, which not only caused Japan to be devastated, but also caused the Japanese people to suffer life and death.
With the strong support of the American people, after three years, the United States finally developed the B29, the world's most advanced high-altitude bomber at that time.
The top speed of this bomber can reach 563 meters per hour, its flight altitude can exceed 10,000 meters, can carry 9,000 kilograms of bombs, its flight altitude is unparalleled at that time, even if the enemy's aircraft can rush to an altitude of more than 10,000 meters, it is difficult to catch up, which greatly improves the safety of the B29.
With these weapons, the United States sent them to Japan on November 24, 1944, still following the original strategy, carrying out precision bombing during the day.
But American pilots were dumbfounded when confident American planes flew over Tokyo, and Japan's military industry was scattered everywhere and hidden in dense residential areas.
Of the 88 bombers sent by the US military, only 30 found the target, but the hit rate was only 10%, and only one Japanese aircraft factory suffered minor injuries during the entire bombing process.
This is precisely because the US military uses daytime precision bombing tactics in Europe, but Japan is surrounded by seas, the climate is very harsh, often strong winds, and clouds, so it is not suitable for daytime tactics.
After facing another defeat, the famous American "barbecue" master Admiral Li Mei appeared, and he was appointed commander of the US 21st Bomber Force.
He led his subordinates to carefully analyze the reasons for the previous failures, and made in-depth analysis of Japan's climate and domestic layout, as well as Japanese building materials.
After some consideration, it was decided to make a desperate bet and set 335 B29 bombers worth more than $400 million to attack Tokyo at night, and set the bombing time for Japan's Military Day.
Moreover, General Li Mei also issued a military order, this air attack can only succeed and cannot fail, so in order to ensure the success rate, Li Mei also formulated four strategic measures:
First, based on the previous successful experience in the use of incendiary bombs, combined with the characteristics of Japanese houses and factories that are mostly wooden structures, it was decided to use cluster incendiary bombs and adopt low-altitude flying carpet bombing.
Second, according to the actual situation of Japan's weak night air defense capability, carry out night bombing, and use surprise attacks to increase the success rate of bombing, and at the same time reduce losses.
Third, because it was a night air raid, night became the best cover for the US military, and the Japanese army lacked effective night air defense means, so General Li May decided to remove all the heavy machine guns on the B29 bombers to increase the amount of incendiary bombs carried and increase the bombing power.
Fourth, the adoption of single-aircraft follow-up bombing tactics can reduce the difficulty of command and the pressure of logistics support, and at the same time change the tactics to medium and low-altitude dive bombing tactics to achieve the purpose of surprise.
Everything was ready, and on the afternoon of March 9, 1945, 335 B29 bombers of the 21st Bomber Group took off from the base in Guam and approached Tokyo.
At about 1 a.m. on March 10, the U.S. bomber group arrived over Tokyo and began a long-planned performance, carrying out low-altitude dive bombing according to the plan.
Another important reason for choosing a night attack is that Japan is extremely short of night fighters, so only a few fighters take off, in this case, the US military does not need self-defense machine gun cover at all, so Li Mei's decision to remove the heavy machine gun and hang more incendiary bombs was correct.
Although the Japanese anti-aircraft artillery fire was extremely ferocious, due to the lack of artillery sighting radar, it was difficult to determine the altitude of American bombers, and they could only use past experience to blindly fire at the air.
The B29 bomber changed the high-altitude horizontal bombing to medium-altitude dive bombing, so the vast majority of the Japanese ground missiles exploded over the US bombers and did not pose a major threat to the US military.
But more than 300 planes of the US military caused a devastating blow to Tokyo, and with the opening of the bomb hatch, the incendiary bombs flying in the sky, like flowers scattered by the goddess, flew all over the sky, spilled to the ground of Tokyo, and then the dense incendiary bombs bloomed brilliantly on the ground, and in an instant, the whole of Tokyo turned into a sea of fire, and there were miserable shouts and panic sounds.
Due to the convection between the heat wave and the cold air, the legendary "Flame Tornado" appeared in Tokyo that night, and the people who slept were engulfed in fire before they even woke up, and the entire city of Tokyo was like a purgatory on earth.
Japan was subdued
In this bombing, the US military dropped more than 450,000 incendiary bombs, and these gasoline bombs were specially designed for Japan and were very flammable.
The fire caused by 450,000 incendiary bombs soon formed a fire storm, the core temperature reached 1,000 degrees Celsius, even the metal lampposts were reduced to ashes, the river was evaporated, and people had little hope of survival.
The U.S. military wants Japan to know how stupid their actions are, and to use their actions to make Japan pay a terrible price.
After a night of bombing, one-quarter of Tokyo was bulldozed, almost all wooden buildings were scorched under the fire, countless places of interest were destroyed, and millions of residents were left homeless.
The Japanese government took 25 days to deal with the disaster alone. The streets were littered with mutilated, unrecognizable corpses and a disgusting smell.
Only 9 U.S. planes were shot down, 5 were seriously injured, and after leaving Tokyo, they were forced to land on the sea, and 42 planes were slightly injured, but all returned to base safely.
Although the United States did not drop a nuclear bomb on Tokyo, its destructive power is not inferior to that of a little fat man. However, what the Japanese never expected was that the nightmare had just begun.
Soon, Japan welcomed the U.S. B29 bombers for the second time, and nearly 300 bombers roared through Nagoya, reducing the arsenal to ashes.
On the 13th, the Americans attacked Osaka, Japan's second largest city, and on the 16th, Kobe was bombed by American troops and successfully destroyed Japan's shipbuilding center. But that's not all.
After the B29 bombers returned, the P51 fighters continued their carpet sweeps, destroying Japan's power and communications facilities, as well as railroads, airfields, ports, freighters, destroyers, and more. The American pilots fired happily, venting their anger.
If it weren't for the U.S. military's depleted inventory of incendiary bombs, more cities in Japan would have been destroyed. While the Japanese people were terrified, Li Mei's next actions made them even more terrified.
Li Mei also specially sent American planes to drop a large number of warning leaflets to inform the next bombing target.
This caused even greater panic among the Japanese people, with more than a million people fleeing into factories in the countryside in Tokyo alone, while employee attendance was half as low as before.
Japan's economy was paralyzed during the war, and the actions of the United States undoubtedly made Japan's economy and war even worse.
Just as Japan was suffering a heavy blow, on May 9, 1945, the United States once again sent more than 300 bombers to Tokyo and dropped more than 1,000 tons of artillery shells on Japanese residential areas.
As the explosion came, the crowd fled in all directions, and many people rushed into the Meiji cinema, hoping that the building could block the flames, but more and more people poured in, and the oxygen in the air was quickly exhausted, and many people were suffocated alive.
Corpses piled up. Some people who jumped into the river to escape ended up floating on the river like char.
Faced with the unending Japanese government, on May 26, 1945, the US military once again dispatched more than 500 B29 bombers to carry out the last bombing of Tokyo.
Fuel-fueled fires fell from the sky, tall buildings drifted through the flames, and the flames could be seen even in the Pacific Ocean, 250 kilometers apart.
In this attack, Tokyo was completely reduced to ruins, and all buildings were burned to ashes, and even lost the value of the attack. However, even so, the Japanese did not raise the white flag, but encouraged the whole country to confront the United States to the end.
This makes the United States wonder how long Japan will last, but it is clear that the United States has lost patience.
Finally, on August 6 and August 9, 1945, the United States threw Little Fat Man at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, and after a huge mushroom cloud, finally made Japan lose its last hope, and announced its unconditional surrender on August 15, making Japan the first country to enjoy Little Fatty.
The bombing of Tokyo became a turning point in World War II, and also became the deadliest and most damaged bombing in the world's military history.
In Tokyo alone, the death toll reached more than 140,000, but compared with the Nanjing Massacre created by the Japanese, in which more than 300,000 Nanjing people died at the hands of Japanese madmen, General Li Mei was already a subordinate.
Strategically, this "fire attack on Tokyo" was a very successful strategy, but the US military's throwing of incendiary bombs on residential areas was very controversial internationally, but to this day, the United States has always believed that Japan is to blame, and Japan has not apologized for the riot incident in China, but once falsified history in an attempt to erase its own crimes.
epilogue
All countries that want to gain benefits by invading other countries will eventually bring immeasurable losses to themselves, because war is cruel, not only will it hurt others, but it may eventually suffer a more violent backlash. Therefore, if a country wants to achieve faster and better development and progress, it must cherish peace and stay away from war.