The Firebombing of Tokyo: The History of the U.S. Air Force’s Most Controversial Bombing Campaign of World War II - Charles River Editors Audiobook
Language: EnglishKeywords:
Air Raid
Bombing
Imperial
Japan
Kamikaze
Pearl Harbor
USA
War Crime
World War 2
Shared by:jewwangle
Written by
Read by Colin Fluxman
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 32 Kbps
Unabridged
As American forces pushed the Japanese back across the Pacific from 1942-1944, their island-hopping campaign ultimately made it possible for the Air Force to conduct bombing runs over the Japanese mainland.
The first serious air raids came in November 1944, after the Americans had captured the Marianas Islands, and through February 1945, American bombers concentrated on military targets at the fringes of the city, particularly air defenses. However, the air raids of March 1945, and particularly on the night of March 9, were a different story altogether. In what is generally referred to as strategic or area bombing, waves of bombers flew low over Tokyo for over two and a half hours, dropping incendiary bombs with the intention of producing a massive firestorm. The American raids intended to produce fires that would kill soldiers and civilians, as well as the munitions factories and apartment buildings of those who worked in them. 325 B-29s headed toward Tokyo, and nearly 300 of them dropped bombs on it, destroying more than 267,000 buildings and killing more than 83,000 people, making it the deadliest day of the war.
The firebombing that night and morning left 25% of Tokyo charred, with the damage spread out over 20 miles of the metropolis. In fact, the damage was so extensive that casualty counts range to over 100,000. Additional raids, this time largely on the north and west, came in April, and in May, raids hit Ginza and the south. Altogether, American bombers flew more than 4,000 missions over Tokyo before surrender. The damage was spread widely, but it was worst in the low city, where some neighborhoods were virtually depopulated as survivors fled to the relative safety of the countryside. Honjo and Fukagawa each lost roughly 95% of their pre-raid populations. In 1940, Tokyo was a city of perhaps 6.8 million, but two years after the end of the war, when the population had already begun to increase again, it was still little more than four million.
As with dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the firebombing of Tokyo has remained controversial since the end of World War II. Japan had wisely spread out its industrial facilities across Tokyo so that one concerted attack could not deal a severe blow to its military capabilities. However, by spreading everything out, as the Germans had also done, Allied planes hit targets in residential zones, greatly increasing the casualties. Thus, by destroying as much of Tokyo’s wartime manufacturing as possible, the American air force also destroyed half the city.
Of course, it’s far easier with the advantage of hindsight for people to call the campaign disproportionate, especially since the bombing campaign came at a time when the United States still faced the dreadful prospect of invading Japan’s mainland. In 2007, Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzō took responsibility for Japan’s refusal to surrender when defeat was inevitable, thus placing the blame for the firebombing on Japan itself. Shinzō announced that Japan would financially compensate survivors and bereaved family members of those killed, and shortly after the announcement, 112 survivors filed a lawsuit seeking damages for damage done during the campaign.
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This post has 14 comments with rating of 5/5
April 16th, 2017
There is no controversy about this event. It happened during war. End of story. We did what we had to do to win over an enemy bent on destroying our way of life. No controversy whatsoever.
April 16th, 2017
Is the protection of our country controversial? I don’t think so. But it may be if you are a liberal who hates America. When you ask a country to simply surrender and they choose not to then they took the fate of their people in their own hands. And as a result Japan experienced the retaliation of the disgusting thing they did to the brave people who died at pearl harbor. When America demanded that they surrender for a second time they chose not to and experienced again the consequences of a stupid decision. America shifty ended that and put Japan in there place.
April 17th, 2017
You guys actually really believe the Japanese were “bent on destroying our way of life”, don’t you?
Well, I have no idea where you got that idea, but it isn’t remotely true. The Japanese wanted to ensure the survival of their Empire (’Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’). They had no desire to destroy the United States, and were well aware that they completely lacked the ability to do so even if they wanted to. The United States had twice the population and between 5 and 80 (yes, eighty) times the industrial capacity, depending on what specific aspect of industrial output you’re measuring, of Imperial Japan.
The Japanese felt pressured to attack us by our oil, steel, and other resource embargoes. To the Japanese the choice was between lacking the means to continue their domination of the Far East, or to start a war with the US in the hopes of scoring a heavy enough initial blow that the US would agree to a favorable peace treaty in which the embargoes were lifted. They gambled and lost.
The Japanese effectively lost the war within 6 months when all four of their main fleet carriers were sunk at Midway. After that the end result was a forgone conclusion.
By the time we were deliberately firebombing their major cities with the goal of inflicting civilian casualties, the Japanese had already been offering to conditionally surrender. Their main condition was that they get to keep the institution of the Imperial Household, which the US wasn’t willing to accept. In the end they unconditionally surrendered, but MacArthur allowed them to keep their Emperor anyway. So the firebombing (and by extension the atomic bombings) were completely pointless.
Anyone who claims these actions were justified, that the Japanese wanted to destroy America, or that the Japanese refused to surrender, is grossly ignorant of history.
April 17th, 2017
Sorry… the Japs could have surrendered at any time.
They didn’t. So we destroyed there ability to make war and there will to fight.
Once you start targeting civilians then it’s open season on your civilians. We’ll burned your cities and laugh.
The Emperor was dethroned.
We broke them and they will never dream of Empire again.
Plus it was pay back for killing all the Chinese.
The Japs were evil racist monsters - much more racist than the Germans - and they deserved what they got.
April 17th, 2017
End of story.
Once you deliberately target civilians as policy in a conflict you open yourself up to the same.
Then ran wild on China when they has the upper hand.
So we did it to them.
April 17th, 2017
WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO, WHEN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, RUNS WILD ON YOU, BROTHER?
April 17th, 2017
When someone naively says “destroying our way of life” it shows how grossly ignorant of history they are.
Categorical ignorance toward the rest of the world and its diverse history is the worst symptom of American prejudice!
April 17th, 2017
It’s also just sad reading some regressive going on about the evils of the US in bombing the hell out of Japan.
Never mind that the Japanese were butchering people right and left from the very end of the 1800s until we nuked them. Never mind the rape of Nanking. Never mind the fact that the Japanese had a decentralized industrial base the made it hard to take out their production. Nope! It’s all about how the US should have made a different decisions 70 some odd years because muh narratives.
April 17th, 2017
“The Emperor was dethroned.”
No, he wasn’t. Are you seriously this ignorant of WW2 history?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%8Dwa_period
The Japanese had made repeated offers to surrender, we refused to hear them unless it was total.
I see a lot of “they did horrible things too!” in here. Two wrongs don’t make a right; this is literally schoolyard, kids stuff. Especially when those wrongs don’t at all line of with the propaganda claims. The firebombings of major cities had nothing to do with targeting industry, they were about destroying the cities themselves. This was also the case with the atomic bombings, where we aimed the bombs not at military or industrial areas but in the middle of the city centers.
The notion that we targeted Japanese civilians as payback for dead Chinese is laughable. The West didn’t care at all about China. Our atomic bombings in particular were explicitly framed as payback for Pearl Harbor.
And what was really hurting the Japanese was our mining of their inter-island shipping lanes.
This isn’t about second-guessing 70 year old decisions; the decisions were controversial and opposed by many at the time. This is about recovering history that has been intentionally swept under the rug.
May 8th, 2018
Bataan death march, Rape of Nanking, eating the livers of captured American pilots! So because we embargoed them from buying resources from us, pearl harbor was understandable? Puhleez! They started it, we finished it! Japan had even sent troops to some islands off Alaska.
June 13th, 2018
Whatever “side” you are on, anyone interested in America’s air war during WWII (and Korea, and Vietnam) really, really should read the amazing and absorbing book by Columbia History Professor (and attorney), Robert Neer — ‘Napalm: An American Biography’ published in 2013 by Harvard University Press. Look for it at your local public library. It’s great.
February 26th, 2020
My late Dad served on the Battleship Iowa and was present when shelling the coast of Japan , before they surrendered .
My late boss was a Sea Bee and would have been in on the invasion of Japan .
Both survived the was , as many others that survived . Many of which would not have , if the invasion had of taken place .
Those are the people that should have / had a voice in this discussion . Not those of us that are merely arm chair ” experts ” .
Wyr
God bless
April 7th, 2024
For all of you people who are “defending” Japan, please also include, in your discussions, the absolutely barbaric atrocities they visited on all who were under their control during that war! No, two wrongs don’t make a right, but SOMEONE has to end the war. And NO, they did NOT agree to surrender. THAT is why the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened. Why some people are so determined to make the U.S. the villains in answering a DIRECT ATTACK on the U.S. by another country, after offering them many chances to avoid the horrible event, is beyond me.
April 27th, 2024
Thank you
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