Bombing Japan - Incendiary Bombs Over Tokyo, Part 2

WARNING:  THIS CLIP, AND ITS DESCRIPTION, CONTAINS HISTORICAL FOOTAGE OF WAR AND THE DROPPING OF FIRE BOMBS OVER JAPAN.  PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

As B-29 raids intensify, over Japan, people there start to worry that the war could be lost.  There was no sign, however, of surrender.

Then ... in March of 1945 ... General Le May ordered a change of tactics.  B-29s would fly low (between 5,000 to 8,000 feet), at night, and deliver incendiary (fire) loads. 

On the 10th of March, about 300 B-29s took off from various Pacific islands to complete a bomb run over Japan.  According to one of the pilots, who flew the mission: 

We wiped out 17 square miles of Tokyo in what was one of the worst fires in the history of man.  We saw pieces of houses like windows and doors actually going by the airplane at around 8,000 feet. 

I've never been in worse turbulence in an aircraft - anywhere - that was stronger than that night, March 10th, over Tokyo. 

We had at least one airplane, which I'm sure was lost because of the pilot's effort to maintain his altitute in the face of terrible turbulence [caused by the fires].  And the wings did fall off - the aircraft was seen in three major parts as it went down over the target that night.

Beyond reducing buildings to ashes, the bombing killed about 90,000 people that night and rendered around 1 million homeless.

See, also:

Bombing Japan - Incendiary Bombs Over Tokyo, Part 1

Bombing Japan - Incendiary Bombs Over Tokyo, Part 3

Bombing Japan - Incendiary Bombs Over Tokyo, Part 4

Credits

Clip from "World War II Battlefront" - segment on "The Last Stronghold (November, 1944)," produced by Madacy Entertainment Group, Inc. (2001).

Clip online, courtesy National Geographic.