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Post by Jaga on Mar 9, 2015 19:31:52 GMT -7
This day, March 9, there was an event in which at east 120 thousands people die.... not in Europe.
Who knows?
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Mar 9, 2015 19:54:23 GMT -7
March 9, 1945
Firebombing of Tokyo
On this day, U.S. warplanes launch a new bombing offensive against Japan, dropping 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo over the course of the next 48 hours. Almost 16 square miles in and around the Japanese capital were incinerated, and between 80,000 and 130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded history.
Early on March 9, Air Force crews met on the Mariana Islands of Tinian and Saipan for a military briefing. They were planning a low-level bombing attack on Tokyo that would begin that evening, but with a twist: Their planes would be stripped of all guns except for the tail turret. The decrease in weight would increase the speed of each Superfortress bomber-and would also increase its bomb load capacity by 65 percent, making each plane able to carry more than seven tons. Speed would be crucial, and the crews were warned that if they were shot down, all haste was to be made for the water, which would increase their chances of being picked up by American rescue crews. Should they land within Japanese territory, they could only expect the very worst treatment by civilians, as the mission that night was going to entail the deaths of tens of thousands of those very same civilians. “You’re going to deliver the biggest firecracker the Japanese have ever seen,” said U.S. Gen. Curtis LeMay.
The cluster bombing of the downtown Tokyo suburb of Shitamachi had been approved only a few hours earlier. Shitamachi was composed of roughly 750,000 people living in cramped quarters in wooden-frame buildings. Setting ablaze this “paper city” was a kind of experiment in the effects of firebombing; it would also destroy the light industries, called “shadow factories,” that produced prefabricated war materials destined for Japanese aircraft factories.
The denizens of Shitamachi never had a chance of defending themselves. Their fire brigades were hopelessly undermanned, poorly trained, and poorly equipped. At 5:34 p.m., Superfortress B-29 bombers took off from Saipan and Tinian, reaching their target at 12:15 a.m. on March 10. Three hundred and thirty-four bombers, flying at a mere 500 feet, dropped their loads, creating a giant bonfire fanned by 30-knot winds that helped raze Shitamachi and spread the flames throughout Tokyo. Masses of panicked and terrified Japanese civilians scrambled to escape the inferno, most unsuccessfully. The human carnage was so great that the blood-red mists and stench of burning flesh that wafted up sickened the bomber pilots, forcing them to grab oxygen masks to keep from vomiting.
The raid lasted slightly longer than three hours. “In the black Sumida River, countless bodies were floating, clothed bodies, naked bodies, all black as charcoal. It was unreal,” recorded one doctor at the scene. Only 243 American airmen were lost-considered acceptable losses.
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Post by Jaga on Mar 9, 2015 22:02:12 GMT -7
John,
thanks. They had old photos today in Polish newspaper about the anniversary. I think, it is important to remember since in Europe we barely know anything about Pacific war.
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Post by karl on Mar 10, 2015 10:19:02 GMT -7
Jaga and J.J.
Interesting but a necessary tradgidy with such tremendous loss of life. This, a prime example of the results of war. To die is one thing, but in the manner of being burnt to death is an another, as case in point with the bomber crews flying at such low altitude to experience the stink of such deaths.
Karl
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Post by pieter on Mar 10, 2015 15:03:40 GMT -7
Yes, it is truely tragic that wars and conflict have and had to be finished with mass killings of civilians. The useless massacres of the First World War, Guernica (during the Spanish civil war), and during the Second World War Warsaw, Poznań, Rotterdam, Coventry/London, Leningrad/Stalingrad, Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden, Breslau (Wrocław), Tokyo, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Korea, Vietnam, Biafra (Nigeria), Cambodja (killing fields), Ruanda, Congo, Bagdad, Kabul, Beirut (Lebanese bloody civil war), Tripoli (Lebanon), Aleppo, Damascus, Sarajevo, Belfast, Benghazi and the Libiyan Tripoli. Pablo Picasso's painting Guernica (1937), Oil on canvas, dimensions: 349 cm × 776 cm (137.4 in × 305.5 in), Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, SpainB-29 Firebombing Tokyo on March 9, 1945Aerial view of night bombing of the Japanese city of Shizuoka. The photo shows the flash of a bomb explosion and fire caused by bombing.Ash, debris and burned bodies in Tokyo. March 1945Japanese at the ruins of his home in YokohamaThe B 29 Superfortress American bomber
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Post by pieter on Mar 10, 2015 15:36:33 GMT -7
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Post by karl on Mar 11, 2015 14:19:38 GMT -7
Pieter
What a fascinating film of an American bombing group from planning, desimination of information to the flight crews in assembly. To then the flight time to distenantion in Japan, to then the actual bombing of distinated targeting.
The advanced design of these B-29 heavy bombers is such an example of American advanced designs if to observe the features in such things as: remote fire control systems in gunnery, bomb sighting, flight control systems with this, an obvious flight operation directional navigation system for to and from target to home system.
With this, the advanced for the time, exhaust driven turbo charging system for the multi cyclinder motors for high altitude operations, is both commendable and remarkable.
An interesting presentation to say of least..
Karl
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