March 9-10, 1945. Operation MEETINGHOUSE. The Firebombing of Tokyo

As we watch the precision strikes conducted in Iran by the American and Israeli Air Forces, it’s worth remembering that “precision” is a relatively new thing.

In WW2, bomber advocates had sold “precision bombing” as a fast and painless path to victory in Europe. But despite enormous effort, the air war in Europe had devolved into a slog, becoming the conflict’s longest battle. More American airmen, in fact, would die in the skies over Europe than the Marine Corps would lose in the entire war. And, in the end, the infantry still had to storm the beaches and retake villages, towns, and cities.

Japan offered the American ‘bomber mafia’ another chance, a blank canvas on which they could paint the awesome power of precision bombing. And they had a new, devastating tool to do it with…the brand new B29 Superfortress.

On January 29, 1940, the Army Air Force mailed design requests for a new long-range bomber to America’s top four airplane manufacturers: Boeing, Douglas, Consolidated, and Lockheed. Underlying the new proposal was a fear that Germany, which had invaded Czechoslovakia and Poland, could overrun much of Europe, including Great Britain. In such a scenario, even the new B17, with a range of two thousand miles, would have no bases in the region from which to operate. Germany might then move into South America, which would directly threaten the United States. Three weeks later, Boeing delivered. Engineers at the aircraft company, which had designed and built the four-engine B17 Flying Fortress, had already started exploring concepts for an even larger bomber capable of greater ranges, giving Boeing an advantage over its competitors. On June 14, 1940—the same day Nazi troops marched into Paris—the army wrote Boeing a check for $85,652 to design its model. Ten weeks later—and before Boeing had even completed the mockup—the army awarded the company a $3.6 million contract to build two flying prototypes. Eventually, the B29 program would cost over 3.7 billion dollars. It was the single most expensive weapons system of the war! For context, the Manhattan Project cost 1.9 Billion dollars. Added to the dollar cost would be the butcher’s bill of over 8,000 Americans killed and 15,000 wounded to secure operating bases for the B29s in the Marianas Islands. (B29 trivia: Confederate General James Longstreet’s second wife - Ellen Dortch Longstreet [1863-1962]- worked as a riveter in a Georgia plant assembling B29s.)

The aircraft was designed for daylight, precision bombing from high altitude. Boeing’s bomber featured a pressurized cabin, the first purely military-designed aircraft to do so, and carried a ton of bombs 5,333 miles at a cruising speed of 290 mph. An 11-12 man crew manned the four-engine aircraft carrying four remotely controlled retractable turrets each with twin .50 caliber machine guns, along with a pair of .50 caliber machine guns in the manned tail turret and with a 20 mm cannon.

The guns were fitted with the General Electric Central Fire Control System, which included position sensors and gyroscopes. These sensors fed data into an analog computer that calculated a ballistic solution, taking into account range estimation, bullet drop, deflection of both the gunner and the target, wind correction, and parallax. This technology significantly enhanced the accuracy of the gunner’s fire. The fire control system also allowed one gunner to control multiple turrets. It was revolutionary. But its main defensive feature was altitude. Operating at over 30,000 feet, it was immune to most Japanese fighters. Even anti-aircraft artillery struggled to accurately reach targets that high. All of that technology was purpose-built to put a bombardier, thousands of pounds of bombs, and the famed Norden bombsight over an enemy target …. And blow that target to kingdom come.

Unfortunately, it didn’t really work well. The bombardier, thousands of pounds of bombs, and the famed Norden bombsight arrived over numerous enemy targets, alright. But few targets were destroyed. Clouds and swirling winds delivered payloads everywhere but the targets. For example, on November 24, 1944, 110 B29s took off from Saipan, in the Marianas, to attack the Nakajima Aircraft Engine Factory at Musashino, 10 miles west of Tokyo. Almost nothing went right. Seventeen B29s aborted before reaching Japan. Six others who reached Tokyo were unable to drop their bombs due to mechanical failure. Weather was uncooperative. Clouds between the ground and the B29s obscured the target. The high-flying B29s were caught in a 120mph tailwind. This pushed the bombers over their aim points at 450mph, too fast for accuracy. Crosswinds scattered the bombs dropped. Only 48 of the bombs dropped landed in the factory area. Three of those were duds. The 500lb general-purpose bombs proved too light to cause serious damage to the reinforced concrete of the main factory buildings. The fires set by the incendiaries were quickly quenched by the factory’s firefighters.

The raid set the pattern for the next three months – for both sides. Neither side could seriously hurt the other. US bombing was inaccurate. Japanese resistance was ineffective. But it did prove that unescorted B29s could survive over Tokyo.

A 3.7 billion dollar investment in precision bombers had damn-well better deliver results. Back as far as summer of 1943, tests at the Dugway Proving Grounds had demonstrated the vulnerability of traditional Japanese wood and paper construction to incendiaries. Fires were easy to ignite, and they spread fast. With this data in mind, General Curtis LeMay - now in charge of all B29s in the Pacific - decided on a radical change in tactics.

LeMay tossed “precision bombing” out the window. He ordered his fliers to go against everything they had been trained to do. There would be no more 32,000-foot daylight raids in tight formations. The B29s would become night raiders, and they would come in low. LeMay’s advisors had convinced him that Japan lacked any real low-level flak capabilities, and the enemy fighters would be far less effective attacking the low-flying bombers in pitch black darkness at altitudes ranging from 5-9,000 feet. The low altitudes, his advisors said, would negate the winds and clouds and would allow his crews to place their bombs directly on the target. Not that real precision would actually be needed. LeMay planned to change more than just tactics, but also the type of target. Gone was the pinpoint focus on the enemy’s industry. Instead, he planned to unleash his bombers armed with incendiaries on downtown Tokyo’s crowded neighborhoods.

For a firestorm to be as destructive as possible, at least a man-made one, it had to have the right conditions. The weather had to be dry, and had to have been dry for quite a while. There had to be strong winds, and in Tokyo’s case, winds blowing in from the north. Finally, the ability of the target to fight the fire had to be limited.

The Imperial capital of Tokyo checked all of those boxes on the night of March 9-10.

For his target, LeMay chose a small area of Tokyo, a three by four square mile area that housed an estimated 750,000 people. It was determined by American intelligence that a high concentration of small factories that made up Japan’s cottage industry production capability was in this specific area of Tokyo. With the target selected, the airplanes loaded, and the crews briefed, the first B-29 lifted off just after 5:30 on the afternoon of March 9, 1945. That first B-29 was followed by over 270 more, taking off at 50-second intervals…all bound for Tokyo. Mission number 40, codenamed Operation MEETINGHOUSE, was underway.

Air raid sirens sounded in Tokyo around 10:30 p.m., though most inhabitants paid little attention. While some of the citizenry filed out of their wooden homes, many did not. Tokyo had been bombed before, but only once at night and then not by many aircraft. Tonight would be different.

The first B29s over Tokyo were pathfinders. Their task was to mark.

The target area for the following bomber stream. Coming in over the target from opposite directions, the pathfinders dropped their payloads of napalm-filled incendiaries. Each bomb load covered an area around 2,000 feet long by 300 feet wide. The incendiaries scattered over the wooden rooftops and immediately burst into flames. The target was now brightly illuminated in the shape of an enormous fiery “X."

The following B29s dumped almost 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo that night. The stream of 279 Superfortresses continued overhead for hours. Each aircraft was assigned to bomb one of the 4 quadrants of the pathfinders’ “X”. This guaranteed a spreading firestorm. After only 15 minutes, the Japanese firefighters gave up trying to fight the fires and concentrated on evacuating the citizens. The people in the target area ran through the streets in panic, desperate to find any form of safety from the searing heat …reported to have reached an unimaginable 1,800 degrees. It sucked the oxygen out of the air, asphyxiating those it did not simply roast to death. The clothes on people’s backs literally burst into flames from the heat. The glass in windows began to liquify and the superheated air and cyclonic winds from the firestorm blew the liquified glass into the air, where it fell on people like fiery rain. Many people’s first instinct was to seek shelter in water. They fled to the river and to some of the canals that crossed through the neighborhoods. Others sought the imagined safety of the Futaba school with its massive swimming pool and large brick buildings. But water was no safe haven. The next morning, tens of thousands of corpses choked the waterways, not burned, but baked and roasted to death by the heat. Those who found refuge in the pool were no better off. Over a thousand bodies were counted in the pool, which was full to the top with water the night before, but in the morning was bone-dry. The water had boiled out of the pool, boiling alive the people who were attempting to save themselves from the heat.

In the end, MEETINGHOUSE was the deadliest single action of the war. It caused more fatalities than either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. 16 square miles of the capital had been razed to the ground. Over 1,000,000 people were left homeless and more than a quarter million buildings and homes had been destroyed. Morale among the citizens of Tokyo plummeted. For the first time, many came to the realization that the war was lost. Their government could feed them all the false propaganda it wanted, but the fiery writing was literally on the walls. The estimated 110,000 fatalities were all one needed to know to prove that point.