B-29s Firebombing Japan

[Troy Tempest]

In the Pacific, General Haywood Hansen's XXI Bomber Command finally start their campaign against Japan on 14.11.1944. Unfortunately, their high altitude precision bombing tactics produced little results, mainly due to the unplanned encounter with powerful jet streams. Their first target, the Nakajima factory of Musashino, received minimal damage at best. The XXI Bomber Command continued to fine-tune their bombing techniques during December and January, however, their efforts were plagued by the jet stream, a high velocity wind that flows above Japan that's well known by the host country, but little studied in the United States. Jet streams operated at nearly the same altitude the B-29s flew, usually between 27,000 to 33,000 feet. This pushed the fragile airframe as fast as 450 mph in ground speed and taxing the already unrefined engines, causing fires, multiple breakdowns and consuming too much fuel. What's worse, despite multiple raids at high cost, their number one target, the Nakajima aircraft factory at Musashino-tama, just northwest of Tokyo, received minimal damage when the bombs scattered due to the fast jet stream winds.

On 3.1.1945, General Hansen sent his B-29s on their first firebombing mission against Nagoya, using the new M69 bombs, but he returned to conventional bombing over Musashino-tama again die to its high priority. Their efforts were beginning to improve a little but by then it was too late for General Hansen to prove his efforts. Washington sent General Curtis LeMay to replace him. On 20.1.1945, General LeMay took over the XXI Bomber Command. At first he followed General Hansen's high altitude conventional bombing campaign with minimal results. The crew morale was at an all time low. Then in desperation, he took note from General Chennault's design of firebombing at low altitude and ordered his gun crews to remove all guns, except for the tail defence, to increase the bomb load. The crews were shocked to hear about the new tactic, and LeMay took the responsibility of not informing USSAAF to perform this new daring night raid. At dusk of 9.3.1945m at least 334 B-29 bombers took off from Tinian, Saipan and Guam. Just before midnight, the pathfinders dropped their load of M47 napalm bombs over Tokyo, creating a target marking that looked like a giant "X" in flames for the rest of the bombers to follow.

They dropped mostly M69 incendiary bombs, which exploded at around 2000 feet altitude, spraying burning oil over the city. As the man-made firestorm reached thousands of degrees fahrenheit, some tried to escape toward the nearby Sumida river, but were either boiled alive or, if lucky, trampled to death. Those who escaped to air raid shelters were either killed by fire or suffocated to death when the firestorm sucked out all the oxygen. The nearby Kawaguchi river caught fire when the industrial pollution in the water ignited. The holocaust killed 83,793 and injured 40,918 mostly civilians by first official Japanese account. The worst mass killing day of the war. The Americans didn't escape unscathed, 40 Japanese fighters, none equipped for night fighting, managed to get airborne during the chaos. With anti-aircraft guns blazing, they managed to damage 42 bombers. 14 B-29s were lost, but air-sea rescue saved 5 crews. 16 square miles of Tokyo were completely destroyed. General LeMay considered the new tactic successful and ordered more targets to be torched.

On the morning of 10.3, citizens near Tokyo thought they were seeing an unusually bright sunrise, what they found in horror is that they had just witnessed the worst single-day holocaust in human history. Not even the upcoming atomic bombing would have a higher one-day body count. In the Meiji-za theatre dead bodies stacked up eight feet high. In air raid shelters many died in upright position, squeezed by packed humans with no air to breathe. But for the Japanese, once the shock wore off, they were better prepared to face further raids. A night later, on 11/12.3.1945, 285 bombers were sent to Nagoya. Losing one bomber they burned 2 square miles of the city. Two nights later, 8 square miles of Osaka were torched. The city of Kobe was hit three nights after that, with 3 square miles being engulfed. With the total loss of 20 B-29s, LeMay's bombers killed 120,000 civilians in less than two weeks. The B-29 Superfortress, designed as a high altitude precision bomber for military targets, turned out to be better at firebombing at low altitude over the cities. But the military targets were not left out.

While LeMay waited for his restock of incendiary bombs, he was ordered to use his B-29s to support the Okinawa invasion during April. This included striking the kamikaze airbases in Kyushu. On 5.5.1945 they tried to bomb from high altitude the naval base of Kure with minimal results, causing them to revert back to low-level firebombing at Nagoya again on 14.5. On 23.5 Tokyo was hit, but the casualties started to mount when 43 B-29s were lost during those two raids, including the famous one nicknamed "Eddie Allen" on the morning of 26.5. LeMay's bombers destroyed 56 square miles by the end of the month but with heavier losses, he changed tactics back to high-altitude daylight bombings. Hiroshima was only two months away.

[lwd]

Interesting. I did find a few of your word choices odd.
For instance:

... This pushed the fragile airframe as fast as 450 mph in ground speed and taxing the already unrefined engines, ....

Why do you say their ariframes were fragile and the engines "already unrefined"?

... 40 Japanese fighters, none equipped for night fighting, managed to get airborne during the chaos. With anti-aircraft guns blazing, ....

I'm not sure I"ve ever seen fighter guns referred to as AA guns before.

... their efforts were plagued by the jet stream, a high velocity wind that flows above Japan that's well known by the host country, but little studied in the United States. .... T

Was the jet stream well known in Japan at that time? I know it also affected raids over Germany and wasn't well known early in the war.

[Troy Tempest]

Interesting. I did find a few of your word choices odd.
For instance:

... 40 Japanese fighters, none equipped for night fighting, managed to get airborne during the chaos. With anti-aircraft guns blazing, ....

I'm not sure I"ve ever seen fighter guns referred to as AA guns before.

I didn't refer to fighters as AA guns, I said with anti-aircraft guns blazing, meaning fighters as well as anti-aircraft guns that were blazing, perhaps I wasn't clear enough, I apologise for confusing you.

[Liam]

Where do you get the figures for B29s shot down from? 43 bombers shot down in two raids sounds rather high given the practically non-existent state of Japanese air defences at that time, and the fact that Le May discovered that it was a lack of medium flak that would make the low level attacks so effective - but it may indeed be the case that they had 43 shot down or - given the tricky nature of the B29 - did this cover losses of all types such as engine failure, crashes on take-off etc?

[redarmybunker]

I though that was a high number also until I checked the 20th Air Force Association web site (http://www.20thaf.org) which has the first 209 missions posted. Here are three raids within that time span that make 44 losses:
MISSION SUMMARY
Mission Number 174
1. Date: 14 May 1945
2. Code Name: Microscope #4
3. Target: North Nagoya Urban Area (197)
4. Participating Units: 58th, 73rd, 313th and 314th Wings
5. Number A/C Airborne: 524
6. % A/C Bombing Primary Target: 89.68% (472 primary and 8 opportunity)
7. Time Over Primary: 140905K - 141025K
8. Altitude of Attack: 16,200 - 20,500
9. Weather Over Target: 1/10 - 8/10
10. Total A/C Lost: 11
11. Resume of Mission: Flash strike report indicated fires extended about 2000 yards NW of Nagoya Castle across N part of city. Mitsubishi Electric Manufacturing Co. and undamaged part of Mitsubishi A/C Engine Plant had fires. Enemy Air Opposition generally was non-aggressive, uncoordinated, and ineffective. Forty-four A/C non-effective. B-29 losses: 1 to E/A, 1 to E/AA: 4 to accident: 4 to other causes and 1 to unknown. Casualties, 8 killed, 41 missing, and 13 wounded. Two B-29’s damaged by E/AC and 54 by E/AA. Ninety E/A sighted made 275 attacks. Claims 23-16-31. Average Bomb Load: 11,479 lbs. Average Fuel Reserve: 642 gallons.

MISSION SUMMARY
Mission Number 181
1. Date: 23 May 1945
2. Target: Tokyo Urban Area
3. Participating Units: 58th, 73rd, 313th and 314th Wings
4. Number A/C Airborne: 558
5. % A/C Bombing Primary: 93.60% (520 primary and 5 opportunity)
6. Time Over Primary: 240239K - 240438K
7. Altitude of Attack: 7,800 - 15,100
8. Weather Over Target: 1/10 – 6/10
9. Total A/C Lost: 7
10. Resume of Mission: A total of 3645.7 tons of incendiary bombs was dropped on the primary Target. Thirty-three A/C were non-effective. Pictures were not taken due to overcast, and damage is included in Mission Summary 183. Two B-29’s lost to A/A, which was heavy, medium, moderate to intense, but inaccurate. One A/C Lost to E/AC and A/A, 4 to accidents, and 10 to unknown causes. Sixty E/A sighted made 83 attacks. Claims were 6-1-2. Forty-nine B-29’s landed at Iwo Jima. Average Bomb Load: 14,138 lbs. Average Fuel Reserve: 633 gallons.

MISSION SUMMARY
Mission Number 183
1. Date: 25 May 1945
2. Target: Tokyo Urban Area
3. Participating Units: 58th, 73rd, 313th, and 314th Wings
4. Number A/C Airborne: 498
5. % A/C Bombing Primary: 92.8% (464 primary and 6 opportunity)
6. Time Over Primary: 252338K – 260213K
7. Altitude of Attack: 7,915 – 22,000
8. Weather Over Target: 1/10 – 9/10
9. Total A/C Lost: 26
10. Resume of Mission: Aircraft dropped a total of 3362 tons of incendiary bombs on the Target with excellent results. This mission and Mission No. 181 accounted for 18.6 square miles of area burned out. Twenty-eight A/C were non-effective. Enemy A/A, which was heavy and medium, moderate to intense, destroyed 3 B-29’s and combined with E/AC to down another: 2 planes were abandoned year Iwo Jima, and 20 B-29s were lost to unknown reasons. A/A damaged 89 B-29’s and combined with A/C damaged 11 more. E/A damaged 10 planes. Sixty E/A sighted made 99 attacks. Claims were 19-0-4. Average bomb load: 13,517 lbs. Average fuel reserve: 794 gallons.

redarmy

[greenhorn]

Saw this documentary 2 years ago... http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentar ... ream.shtml

I remember another documentary stating meterologist theorised there might be high altitude winds and this was confirmed by US bomber pilots in late '44

I don't think jetstream was experienced by bomber pilots over Germany.... may be they didn't fly as high or at the right time/place to benefit from jet streams.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Research of the atmosphere at high altitudes had not gone very far before the war and the research or reconissance did not catch up with the aircraft capability during the war. High altitude weather reconissance did not collect enough data before the B29s begain bombing Japan and the speed of the west to east winds at the bombing altitude were far greater than expected. The changes in velocity were much sharper than expected as the altitude decended. This was beyond the bomb aiming techniques the crew were trained to. The earlier B24 raids from the Alteutians had been from a lower altitude and encountered entirely different weather condition. Some of this was speculated on before the air raids started. but without solid data it was difficult to make usefull predictions. In retrospect its easy to say they needed more reconissance, but theres a million should haves.