Bombing of Tokyo (10 March 1945) in the context of "Bombing of Tokyo"

On the night of 9/10 March 1945, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) conducted a devastating firebombing raid on Tokyo, the Japanese capital city. This attack was code-named Operation Meetinghouse by the USAAF and is known as the Tokyo Great Air Raid (東京大空襲, Tōkyō dai-kūshū) in Japan. Bombs, dropped from 279 Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers, burned out much of eastern Tokyo. More than 90,000 and possibly over 100,000 Japanese people were killed, mostly civilians, and one million were left homeless, making it probably the most destructive single air attack in human history, including the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese air and civil defenses proved largely inadequate; 14 American aircraft and 96 airmen were lost.

The attack on Tokyo was an intensification of the air raids on Japan which had begun in June 1944. Prior to this operation, the USAAF had focused on a precision bombing campaign against Japanese industrial facilities. These attacks were generally unsuccessful, which contributed to the decision to shift to firebombing. The operation during the early hours of 10 March was the first major firebombing raid against a Japanese city. The USAAF units employed significantly different tactics from those used in precision raids, including bombing by night with the aircraft flying at low altitudes. The extensive destruction caused by the raid led to these tactics becoming standard for the USAAF's B-29s until the end of the war.