Inferno

The subtitle is The Firebombing of Japan, March 9-Aug. 15, 1945.

The firebombing of Japan targeted Japanese cities and civilians. The overall death total from the firebombing probably exceeds that of those killed in the atomic bombing. The program was measured in square miles of a city that were effectively destroyed. It was a program that was so effective that, near the end of the war, worthwhile targets to hit were running out.

The author starts out noting two major events of the war, the first being the Holocaust, and the second the firebombing of Japan which killed 300,000, wounded 500,000, and left two million homeless.

In Japan, the people were told to build their own shelters. Subways were too shallow to use for protection.

The first B-29 raid was on Yawata Steel Works on Kyushu. 75 planes were used. The raid did not do significant damage, but was psychologically significant since it was only the second time Japan had been bombed by the U.S. The author then talks about the inaccurate early B-29 bombings.

The book backtracks a little, noting the German blitz of London, and the British and U.S. attacks on Hamburg and Dresden using incendiaries. The person responsible for this was Curtis LeMay, the same man that designed the firebombing program against Japan.

The bombing program was changed from high altitude regular bombing (inaccurate, partially due to wind strength at those altitudes), to low-altitude incendiary bombing, the B-29's stripped down to carry more bombs.

A raid on February 25, 1945 on Tokyo used some incendiaries and destroyed or damaged 28,000 buildings. There was no pretense made of trying to target military places; civilian and military targets alike were fair game.

There are some details of the famed March 9/10 bombing of Tokyo I have not read elsewhere. Winds on the surface had gotten to 80 mph. Messages about planes being sighted were sent by navy picket boats a thousand miles out and received by navy shore stations, but the imperial army was not hooked into the system so they didn't get the alert. Thus, the was basically unexpected.

Fourteen B-29's were shot down in the raid, and another 42 damaged. Air-sea rescues saved five of the fourteen crews. The first plane in was a pathfinder, its job to drop napalm markers to indicate where the other planes should bomb.

A lot of space in the book is taken up with accounts of people who were in the firebombing, and what they saw and what they did to survive. 63% of the commercial district of Tokyo was destroyed. Of the total area destroyed, only 18% was industrial, meaning 82% was civilian businesses and homes.

Nagoya was targeted. The city had spent a lot of effort setting up the best civil defense system in Japan. The particular raid was not as successful as had been hoped, although 2,700 people, mostly women and children were killed in the raid. One very interesting side effect was that the refugees from the area (who were poor, generally), were placed in the better districts of Tokyo and found that the people there were richer and not suffering as much from shortages.

The Japanese propaganda machine inflated the number of B-29s destroyed in the raid. The government, though, began a program of dispersing some of population of cities into the countryside.

Osaka was then targeted. A plane flew overhead and dropped leaflets warning the people to stay away from military installations which was rather useless since area bombing was being used and not precision bombing. One problem for the Japanese was that possessing a leaflet was a crime, so civilians had to gather up leaflets and turn them in to the police.

The results of the first raids, in square miles of the city destroyed: Tokyo, 15.8 square miles; Nagoya, 2.1 square miles; Kobe; 2.9 square miles; Nogoya again, 3 square miles; Osaka, 8.1 square miles. Osaka lost 119 large factories and 200,000 homes.

Kobe was hit, with 56% of the city being destroyed. Then a change was made, with planes carrying both firebombs and regular bombs, the regular bombs to 'discourage' firefighters, destroy electrical lines, and cause confusion. Some cities, like Tokyo and Nagoya, were hit more than once.

The book also tells about how some schoolgirls, who had been forced to work in the post office, ended up in the midst of another B-29 raid which was followed by P-51s strafing targets on the ground, which included them.

Once the larger cities had been dealt with, smaller cities began to be firebombed. One example is Aomori which had 88% of the city destroyed, 1,767 people dead, and 18,000 homes burned. Bombings of other smaller cities is discussed, and then there's a chapter on the use of the atomic bombs.

Because the U.S. demanded an 'unconditional surrender,' many Japanese were worried that their Emperor would be killed or at least removed from power and maybe even tried as a war criminal. The Japanese people were preparing for a last-ditch stand, with civilians using bamboo spears, pitchforks and whatever else they could as potential weapons.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were hit, and Tokyo seemed to be the next target. Japan surrendered before that, though.

In all, the result of the firebombings went like this: 330,000 civilians dead; 476,000 civilians wounded; 6 million displaced, and at least 2.5 million homes were destroyed.

The author also includes some information on what the U.S. would have faced if they had ended up actually invading Japan proper. The Japanese still had some 10,000 aircraft, over half of which were designated for kamikaze use. 97% of Japan's military supplies were protected, either underground or in hardened facilities. They also had around 2 million soldiers they could call on.

The author says that the U.S. submarines had dealt a major blow to the Japanese economy, but that the U.S. should have also concentrated on destroying the railroads and the power supply system, which was what was done in Germany.

This is an extremely good book on the subject.



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