General Curtis LeMay initiated major changes in
the bombing procedures of Japan switching to incendiary bombs, at low altitude, at night, wanting more accuracy and reducing
the defensive firepower of the B-29 to increase the bomb load. It was decided to bomb the four principal Japanese cities,
Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe and Nagoya, at night from altitudes between 4,000 feet and 9,000 feet. Up to now 25,000 feet had been considered
9, 1945 a strong wind had been rattling the panes in the doors and windows all day. For the past few nights single B-29s had
appeared over the sky, without dropping any bombs but flying very low and setting off the searchlights and anti-aircraft fire.
A lot people on the ground had the uneasy feeling that something was due to happen.
The copilot of Z Square 8 of the 500th Bomb Group, Lt Robert Copeland, made this diary
entry, “We briefed this morning for another trip to Tokyo. We'll take off at 1835 tonight and hit there in the morning
at 0115 approx. We're going in at between 7,000 and 7,800 feet. 150 of the 250 ships taking part in the strike will be ahead
of us so there should be some large fires when we get there. We're carrying 40 M-18 incendiary clusters. No guns will be carried.”
On March 9 and 10, 1945, before dawn, 279 B-29s dispatched from the 73rd, 313th and 314th,
31 from the 500th Bomb Group, attack Tokyo urban areas with 1,665 tons of incendiary bombs from between 4,900 feet
and 9,200 feet. Fifteen square miles of the Tokyo urban area is burned out. 14 B-29s are lost, 1 from the 500th
The bombers' primary target was the industrial district of the city where the factories, docks and the
homes of the workers who supplied the manpower for Japan's war industry were located. The district hugged Tokyo Bay and was
densely-packed with wooden homes. All the ingredients were here for creating a perfect fire storm.
The first ships in were 12 Pathfinders whose
job it was to light up the outer reaches of the target area with four or five big fires for the main force. Arriving about
10:30 PM, they were met by searchlights, accurate intense flak and strong headwinds. The others began to arrive shortly afterwards,
flying lower, circled and crisscrossed the area, leaving great
rings of fire behind them. Soon other waves came in to drop their incendiaries, droning over the bay in a sky-train
that lasted for hours, pouring millions of incendiaries inside the roughly patterned circles laid out by the Pathfinders.
The chosen areas were saturated. During the first half hour it was like flying over a forest of Christmas trees. The bombs
flickered like faraway candles. Then the fires spread and merged. The wind seemed to blow the fires in all directions. At
the end it was like a super-blast furnace. The M-69s,
which released 100-foot streams of fire upon detonating, sent flames rampaging through densely packed wooden homes. Asphalt
boiled in the 1,800-degree heat. All that night the general direction of the fires across the lowlands surged one way
and then another as new fires started and the ground wind shifted. The fires could be seen from 150 miles away.
Heat thermals from the fires hurled the bombers thousands of feet upwards in a few seconds. Gusts
were so powerful that some 500-pound bombs, according to some pilots, were thrown back into the bomb bays. The crewmen were
bounced around inside the planes. The smoke and cinders that seeped into the planes a mile high sickened the men in the last
By dawn the wind had died down and most of the fires had burned themselves out among the big granite
buildings west of the Sumida River and at the Arakawa River, which formed the east edge of the target area. Sirens sounded
the “all clear” around 5 AM.
Incendiaries and the lower altitude permitted a substantial
increase in bomb load per plane. The weight and intensity of this attack caught the Japanese by surprise. No subsequent urban
area attack was equally as destructive. It is widely
considered to be the most devastating air raid in history.
On March 10, 1945, Lt. Robert Copeland's diary noted, "We took off last
night at 1835 and after a dull trip hit the coast of Japan at 0210. Even before we made landfall we could see the fires at
Tokyo. We were at 7,800 feet and there was smoke towering above us. The radar run was perfect and we dropped in an open spot
visually. The city was a "Dantes" inferno when we dropped. We got some ack ack that was close enough to hear, but we weren't
hit. One night fighter made a run on us but we turned into him and lost him.”
Not knowing whether General LeMay was joking or not, he is reported saying that, prior to getting
the first strike reports, he was sure his career would be ending on the spot. The raid was a success beyond General LeMay’s
The B-29 gave the United States greater range and firepower while innovations such as low-altitude nighttime attacks
multiplied the potential for terror and destruction. The Tokyo attack was aimed in part at demolishing Japanese morale
and hastening a surrender. Planners also wanted to wipe out small factories and drive away their employees as a way of choking
Two days later, a similar attack on Nagoya destroyed two square miles.
In a period of ten days starting March 9, a total of 1,595 sorties delivered 9,373 tons of bombs against Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka
and Kobe destroying 31 square miles of those cities at a cost of 22 airplanes. The generally destructive effect of incendiary
attacks against Japanese cities had been demonstrated.
The B-29 was finally beginning to have an effect.
From Bill Royster, B-29 Veteran
I think that most people
think the most destuctive air raid in history was the Atomic Bomb. NOT SO. The Japanese empire was
almost totally destroyed by summer 1945. The B-29s had run out of targets and you look at our targets
in the summer of 45 you will see that most of them are smaller cities. The Atomic Bomb was needed to
bring them to their senses.
From General Earl Johnson, 9th Bomb Group, Tinian
Your description of the damage
of the first Tokyo low-altitude, fire raid should remind people of the destructive results of that first fire raid.
An earlier one had been tried on a city in China but without the terrible results of this one on Tokyo.
the briefing at North Field, Tinian in the afternoon of March 9th. I can't remember the position of the crew I was to
fly with but in the briefing I think many of us thought we were going on our "last" mission. But when my crew got to
the IP which was at the entrance to Tokyo Bay, I could see the lights of Tokyo plainly and it looked to me like we were coming
across Lake Michigan and heading into the lights of Chicago at 5,500 feet, as I recall. The city of Tokyo was all lit
up but, of course, by the time we got to "bombs away" most of the lights had been turned off and one could see flashes of
anti-aircraft guns on the ground. But the funny thing was they were so "surprised" they weren't hitting anything.
Later in the raid when they figured out what was going on, the anti-aircraft batteries and night-fighters did began to cause
a little damage. Nonetheless, I think the raging fires and updrafts caused about
as much damage to B-29s toward the tail-end of the raid as did the Japanese defenses.
Of course, this was the first of five raids
in 9-days which hit Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka and, again to Nagoya (which didn't burn too well). Those five (5) raids spelled
defeat for Japan but it took four more months plus the atomic bombs to "convince" the Japanese Generals that they had better
quit. I think many Japanese citizens wanted to quit back in March or April but they were never listened to. I
have a very good Japanese friend, Mitsuya Goto, who was 18-years old at the time, and rode his bicycle down from his grandfather's
farm north of Nagoya after that fire raid only to find the family house burned to the ground. He has told me many times
that he "felt" or "knew" the war was lost but, of course, the Japanese Generals would listen to no one especially an 18-year
old boy or others who were not "Generals".
As terrible as atomic bombs are, their damage cannot match that damage to
Tokyo on that first raid and I would guess the damage on Kobe or Osaka probably "outdid" the damage to the atomic bomb on
Nagasaki but, of course, Nagasaki had "weather problems".
From General Earl Johnson, 313th Wing
I kept your e-mail asking
questions about General LeMay ordering low altitude fire-bombing. This type of bombing was tried on a city in China
by China-based B-29's plus a test was run on a "quick built test city" in this country. Then the decision was made to manufacture
the necessary fire-bombs which took many months then they had to be transported by boat out to the Marianna Islands.
By early March 1945, all the equipment from these tests was "ready to go".
The B-29 guns and turrets were rendered "non-operative" on the theory that B-29 gunners might shoot-down friendly B-29's plus
the fact that the Japanese would be so surprised they would not be able to launch effective defensive attacks at night.
This turned out to be true. Almost all losses of B-29's were due to updrafts from the fires or from having two B-29's
run together in the smoke and updrafts. The defense against Japanese night fighters turned out to be a minor problem.
Crews did not use the Norden Bombsight except in rare occasions but they bombed by radar for there was really no reason the
firebombs had to land on a specific area since the fires would soon spread which is what happened depending upon the ground
wind. I think on that first Tokyo raid of March 9-10, 1945, over 13 square miles was leveled by something over
Hope this clears up your questions about fire-raids. Actually most
people believe they did more to win the war than both atomic bombs.