The bodies of those killed in the barbaric American aerial bombing of civilians in Tokyo, the capital of Imperial Japan, during World War II. Pacific Theater of Combat Operations.
After the ineffective bombing of Japan in 1944, American General Curtis LeMay decided to use a new tactic, which consisted of conducting massive night bombings of Japanese cities with napalm incendiary bombs from low altitudes. The use of this tactic began in March 1945 and continued until the end of the war. 66 Japanese cities fell victim to this method of attack and were heavily damaged.
Tokyo was first subjected to such bombing on February 23, 1945 – 174 of B-29 bombers destroyed about 2.56 square kilometers of the city.
And already on the night of March 9-10, 334 bombers in two hours of attacks created a fire tornado, similar to the tornado during the bombing of Dresden.
In total, 41 square kilometers of the city, which was inhabited by about 10 million people, burned out, and 40% of the total housing stock (330 thousand houses) was destroyed.
As a result of the bombing, according to various sources, at least 80 thousand civilians in Tokyo were killed.
General Curtis LeMay later stated, “I think if we had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal.”
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Time of photo taken: May 10, 1945
Author: (Kōyō Ishikawa / 石川光陽)