Bombing of Tokyo

Bombing of Tokyo
Part of the air raids on Japan during the Pacific War
Tokyo burns under B-29 firebomb assault, 26 May 1945.
Date 1942, 1944–1945 Location Tokyo, Japan Result American victory
Belligerents
United States	Japan

The Bombing of Tokyo (東京大空襲, Tōkyōdaikūshū) was a series of bombing air raids launched by the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. Known as Operation Meetinghouse, the raids were conducted by the U.S. military on the night of 9–10 March 1945, and was the single most destructive bombing raid in human history.^[1] 16 square miles (41 km²; 10,000 acres) of central Tokyo was destroyed, leaving an estimated 100,000 civilians dead and over one million homeless.^[1] The atomic bombing of Hiroshima in August 1945, by comparison, resulted in the immediate death of an estimated 70,000 to 150,000 people.

The U.S. mounted the Doolittle Raid, a seaborne, small-scale air raid on Tokyo in April 1942. Strategic bombing and urban area bombing began in 1944 after the long-range B-29 Superfortress bomber entered service, first deployed from China and thereafter the Mariana Islands. B-29 raids from those islands began on 17 November 1944, and lasted until 15 August 1945, the day of Japanese surrender.^[2]

Over half of Tokyo's industry was spread out among residential and commercial neighborhoods; firebombing cut the city's output in half.^[3] Some modern post-war analysts have called the raid a war crime due to the targeting of civilian infrastructure and the ensuing mass loss of civilian life.^[4][5]