The attack area was 87.4% residential
Here's what the Home of the Brave was up to...61 years ago today:
Here's what the Home of the Brave was up to...61 years ago today:
Acting upon General George C. Marshall’s 1941 idea of torching the poorer areas of Japan’s cities, on the night of March 9-10, 1945, Curtis LeMay’s bombers laid siege on Tokyo. Tightly packed wooden buildings were assaulted by 1,665 tons of incendiaries. LeMay later recalled that a few explosives had been mixed in with the incendiaries to demoralize firefighters (96 fire engines burned to ashes and 88 firemen died).
One Japanese doctor recalled "countless bodies" floating in the Sumida River. These bodies were "as black as charcoal" and indistinguishable as men or women. The total dead for one night was an estimated 85,000, with 40,000 injured and one million left homeless. This was only the first strike in a firebombing campaign that dropped 250 tons of bombs per square mile, destroying 40 percent of the surface area in 66 death-list cities (including Hiroshima and Nagasaki). The attack area was 87.4 percent residential.
It is believed that more people died from fire in a six-hour time period than ever before in the history of mankind. At ground zero, the temperature reached 1,800° Fahrenheit. Flames from the ensuing inferno were visible for 200 miles. Due to the intense heat, canals boiled over, metals melted, and human beings burst spontaneously into flames.
To read the complete article, please click here.
