So he sought out a leading expert on the Japan air raids: geographer Cary Karacas, a professor in the Department of Political Science, Economics, and Philosophy at The City University of New York in Staten Island. The Americans would drop 16,000 tons of napalm and oil bombs during the campaign; vast areas were burned out but 77 B-29 bombers failed to return. 7 Apr: 101 B-29 bombers attacked the Nakajima aircraft factory. The nature of total warfare that these maps reveal often leads people to ask whether all this destruction was necessary or ethical. It shows the extent to which war planners sought out information about the vulnerability and inflammability of Japanese urban spaces. ", "We call this a trophy map," he said. Dresden is Germany’s seventh biggest city … ww2dbaseBy the time of the Japanese surrender, 50% of Tokyo was reduced to rubble. American B-29 bombers based in China conducted a raid on Japan. During the first years of the Pacific War these attacks were limited to the Doolittle Raid in April 1942 and small-scale raids on military positions in the Kuril Islands from mid-1943. In Jan 1945, American General Curtis LeMay took over the 20th and 21st Bomber Commands, merging them into the XX Air Force. Aircraft of US Navy Task Force 58 attacked airfields in southern Kyushu, Japan while 520 US Army B-29 bombers attacked urban and industrial areas south of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. On August 6, 1945, at 8.15 am, the Enola Gay, an American B-29 bomber plane, dropped a 16-kiloton atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Still other maps reveal the extent to which the Air Force went to maximize this destruction. eval(ez_write_tag([[300,250],'ww2db_com-medrectangle-4','ezslot_2',114,'0','0'])); ww2dbaseBombing of Kobe. site is two fold. Cookie Settings, Terms and Conditions 8 Aug: About 60 B-29 bombers attacked aircraft factories and arsenals near Tokyo. The United States adopted a policy of carpet bombing Japanese cities as opposed to precision strikes. After sundown, US 20th Air Force launched 27 B-29 Superfortress bombers to mine waters off Japan and Korea, 127 B-29 bombers to attack Fukui, 126 B-29 bombers to attack Hitachi, 91 B-29 bombers to attack Choshi, 126 B-29 bombers to attack Okazaki, and 83 B-29 bombers to attack the Nippon oil plant at Amagasaki; only 3 B-29 bombers were lost by the US 20th Air Force during this night. Japanese fighters shot down 5 bombers, while 4 others received damage and had to ditch or crash land. 9 homes were destroyed, about 50 homes were damaged, 13 people were killed, and 26 people were seriously injured. Excellent insights into the bombing campaign over Japan and the shift from precision bombing to area bombing. This week marks the 75th anniversary of the United States bombing the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One such map was of Tokyo in early July, 1945. The US air raids on Japan began in earnest in October 1944 and by March 1945 had started their escalation into widespread firebombing, which culminated in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The judges said it made the greatest contribution to the advancement of scholarship in historical geography in 2012, primarily on the basis of the significance and originality of the research. WW2DB site administrators reserve the right to moderate, censor, and/or remove any comment. But the atomic bombing of Hiroshima occurred just five days later, and Toyama's tragic story was all but lost in the closing days of World War … Charts, and tactical targets in Nagasaki, Japan please consider supporting US Patreon! 101 B-29 bombers attacked Osaka harbor japanese cities bombed in wwii Japan in Kobe, nearly completed the first,! Article dedicated to Hiroshima and Nagasaki total death toll of around 140,000 wanted to know more, '' said. 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