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At the beginning of 1945, Japan existed in something of a twilight state. Yes, it was at war, and yes, there had been thousands of casualties…elsewhere. While it was regrettable that the Mariana Islands had been lost to the Americans, and so many men had sacrificed themselves for the Emperor’s peace of mind, but there were more important things to concern one’s self with, including finding enough food to eat, or living without electricity for half the day. But the war, otherwise, was not terribly unpleasant for most Japanese.
War had yet to seriously impact most Japanese.
American bombers had created some difficulties in Yawata, near Kyoto, and Musashino, near Tokyo, but nothing was terribly serious. Some people spoke of the B-29-Sans, huge American bombers that flew high over Japan, beautiful spectacles of shiny metal in the high sunlight. They dropped bombs, but they hit little of importance. While common citizens carried fire hoods and kept their cisterns full of water, finding space to build a personal air raid shelter was difficult in the poorer wards because the buildings were so close together. Common shelters were difficult to construct because the materials were so hard to get. Many people had to be content with a few boards or a corrugated iron sheet to shelter under during the frequent air raid drills.
Then, in February…
On 25 February, the B-29-Sans dropped many firebombs on the Ginza, resulting in horrific fires. The firemen, brave souls helped by the police, kept the fire from spreading beyond the Kanda and Shitayku wards. Their frequent drills, especially on weekends, were a popular entertainment. But much of their equipment depended on parts from America, and on gasoline that was hard to get, even for the authorities. And the sad news that the elephants, lions and tigers at the Ueno Zoo had been put to sleep became common knowledge. Authorities feared that, in the unlikely event of a successful air raid, they might escape and become dangerous.
And, as March began…
The authorities rounded up and destroyed the dogs all over Japan because, they said, of a lack of rabies serum. But food had become so scarce that many of the poor animals were already starving. And the bounty on feral cats in most cities was raised to a whole yen. The surviving domestic felines had already been pared down to skin and bones like the dogs.
And, on the night of 9 March…
The air raid warning sirens in Tokyo sounded near midnight as scores of B-29-Sans raced overhead in the darkness. Neither the picket ships, their numbers decimated by the American submarines, nor the ground observers saw the airplanes coming…hundreds of them…then the bombs spilled out of the planes and the fires began and within minutes there was nothing anyone could do but…flee!
And watch central Tokyo burn…
For just over three hours 276 B-29s delivered just under four million pounds of incendiary bombs in a three-by-four square mile area between the Sumida and the Ara Rivers, immolating over a million buildings, killing over 100,000 people, injuring twice as many more, and making over a million homeless. Fire protection was impossible; the Tokyo Electric Power Company, which powered the water pumps for the fire mains, was destroyed in the first few minutes. Entire wards vanished in moments; people burst into flames as they ran. And everyone, at first, ran.
And the Fire Dragon roared…
The heat generated by the tinder-dry wooden residences that made up most of the target area started a sweep conflagration—not unlike a forest wildfire—that ate everything as it screeched through the city. Escape was only possible by sheer luck, by finding water sources or, sometimes, by being buried under other people.
By dawn on 10 March, Tokyo was a city of ghosts…
The survivors cared for the hurt as best they could, but the fires destroyed most of the hospitals and clinics, and the sheer numbers of hurt overwhelmed those remaining. The few surviving crematoria had no fuel; mass cremations and burials began, but even they lacked fuel and open space. Desperate people converted bathhouses to crematoria. Untold thousands washed out to sea with the tides of the rivers. Many, many more simply turned to ash. The 9-10 March attack on Tokyo was, without doubt and without peer, the deadliest single air attack in history, having destroyed just over fifteen square miles—about 40%—of Tokyo, and killed more people initially than either atomic bomb.
Japan’s authorities declared a glorious victory, claiming over 100 B-29s shot down, admitting only minor damage to Tokyo.
The actual B-29 combat loss is unknown (non-combat losses of B-29s were prodigious), but only fourteen aircraft were unaccounted for in the morning. Privately, the Japanese hierarchy was mystified, horrified, and panic-stricken. Japan lacked the resources to repair the damage done to Tokyo in a single evening to restore even basic services to most of the population. And the fire department drilled no more, their morale broken. If the Americans could repeat such a feat…
They could…and did…
In the next two months, mass firebombing devastated nearly every large Japanese industrial city. Beginning in June, the B-29s visited Japan’s smaller cities, razing most of them in a matter of hours. By August 1945, at least 10% of Japan’s prewar population was homeless. From one end of the archipelago to the other, Japanese scrounged for food, fuel and shelter wherever they could find it. Yet, still, Japan’s leaders failed to respond to repeated American requests to talk about ending the carnage. Yet, the workers still worked, the farmers still farmed, and everyone else simply endured.
The common thread is the Japanese leadership’s failure to face reality.
The first time the common Japanese knew that the war was going badly was in the summer of 1944, when the Americans captured the island of Saipan, which compelled Tojo Hideki to resign as both Prime and War Minister. While American arms had defeated the Japanese time after time since early 1942, the common Japanese believed the war was going well, that the Americans were suffering huge losses while they inexplicably drew closer to the Home Islands every month. What is more remarkable to us in the 21st Century is that the common people simply endured the horrific destruction of Japan with no complaint…in public. They could not choose their leaders, and had very little voice in public affairs. It was their duty to serve Japan and the Emperor, nothing else.
It was Japan’s way, just as it was the samurai way to allow Japan to be incinerated.
In bushido, only death can atone for failing to accomplish even the smallest task perfectly. Just as the common Japanese endured unbelievable suffering, so too did the leadership of Japan endure defeat after defeat. The “young men of purpose,” called shishi, stalked the halls of power ready and willing to kill any who spoke of surrender because, you see, Japan had not accomplished the task the leaders set out for it—resource autarky—Japan, therefore, was to die.
This was the mindset that Japan’s leaders had that August…
After six months of the firebombing campaign, after years of the submarine campaign, and after the Soviet Union overran Manchuria, there was to be no surrender. It was a kind of twilights state once again, enforced by ideological fanatics not unlike the Nazis. This completely alien to the rest of the world weltanschauung had to be overcome. The atomic bombings that August and the Soviet declaration of war were just the last cataclysms. The destruction of Japan’s cities by an unrelenting firebombing campaign was hundreds of the many straws on a very weary Emperor’s back that brought about the end of the Pacific War.
The Fire Blitz: Burning Down Japan
The Fire Blitz was the firebombing program begun in March 1945 and carried out right up to August. In six months, the B-29s of the Twentieth Air Force destroyed over 100 square miles of urban area, and brought Japan’s industrial capacity to a near standstill. By their own calculations, by mid-September, there would no longer be any urban targets left.
Get The Fire Blitz: Burning Down Japan from your favorite bookseller or from me if you want an autograph.
Coming Up…
6 April…Twice
Apples and Rocks: The Constitution and Iroquois
And Finally…
On 30 March:
1855: Missouri invades Kansas. Supporters of slavery, thousands of Missourians took advantage of a loophole in Kansas law that altered residency rules for voting. This was the beginning of “Bleeding Kansas,” the violence that triggered thoughts of civil war.
1923: Cunard liner RMS Laconia completes the first circumnavigation by an ocean liner by returning to New York. Chartered by American Express, Laconia and her 327 leisure passengers stopped in at 22 ports after her departure in November 1922.
And today is NATIONAL PENCIL DAY, commemorating the day in 1858 when Hymen Lipman patented the “modern pencil,” a wooden graphite pencil with a rubber eraser attached to it. Remember these? I’ve got fistfuls of ‘em; still use ‘em, too.