November 24th, 1944.
p.m.
Tokyo, Japan.
Air raid sirens began wailing across the city.
Japanese air defense radar had picked up a formation approaching from the south.
Over 100 aircraft, heavy bombers headed straight for Tokyo.
Fighter pilots at airfields around the capital scrambled to their aircraft.
Mitsubishi A6M0, Napajima K44s, Kawasaki K61s.
Orders were clear.
Intercept and destroy the bombers.
The pilots climbed to altitude 15,000 ft, 20,000 ft, 25,000 ft.
The higher they climbed, the worse their aircraft performed.
Engines struggled.
Controls became less responsive.
At 28,000 ft, pilots spotted the bomber formation above them.
Still higher, the bombers were maintaining altitude that Japanese fighters couldn’t reach effectively.
Pilots pushed their aircraft to the limit, 29,000 ft, 30,000 ft.
Their zeros and K44s were at maximum capability.
Some pilots began experiencing hypoxia despite oxygen masks, vision narrowing, coordination suffering.
Above them, a formation of four engine bombers flew in tight formation at 31,000 ft.
The bombers weren’t struggling at that altitude.
They were maintaining formation and speed as if the thin air meant nothing.
Pilots radioed ground control.
The bombers were at 31,000 ft.
Japanese fighters couldn’t reach them effectively.
Most aircraft were barely maintaining altitude at 30,000 ft.
Ground control ordered attacks anyway.
The bombers had to be stopped.
Some pilots managed to climb to 31,000 ft and attempt attack runs, but their aircraft wouldn’t accelerate properly.
Turns were sluggish.
Aiming was nearly impossible with hypoxia and barely responsive controls.
The few Japanese fighters that got close enough to fire found their rounds falling short or missing entirely.
And the B29s had defensive armament.
1050 caliber machine guns per aircraft, remote controlled turrets.
The returning fire was accurate.
Several Japanese fighters were hit.
One exploded.
Another went into a spin, the pilot unconscious.
A third limped away with a dying engine trailing smoke.
The remaining pilots broke off their attacks.
There was no effective way to engage bombers at this altitude.
Staying at 31,000 ft meant risking death from hypoxia, engine failure, or defensive fire.
Anti-aircraft batteries across Tokyo opened fire.
75 mm and 88 mm guns at maximum elevation.
Shells climbed toward 31,000 ft.
Black puffs of flack appeared around the bomber formation, but 31,000 ft was at the extreme range of these weapons.
Most shells exploded below the bombers.
A few reached the correct altitude, but missed by wide margins.
The B29’s formation flew through the flack without taking significant damage.
Japanese air defense commanders realized their defenses couldn’t stop these bombers.
Fighters couldn’t reach them.
Anti-aircraft guns couldn’t hit them consistently.
Japan had no effective defense against aircraft operating at 31,000 ft.
The B29th formation continued toward its target, the Mousashino aircraft engine factory in northwestern Tokyo, a critical war production facility.
Destroying it would impact Japanese aircraft manufacturing significantly.
The lead bombardier activated the Nordan bomb site.
The B-29 flew straight and level, the most vulnerable configuration for any bomber.
But at 31,000 ft, with Japanese defenses unable to reach them effectively, the risk was manageable.
Bomb bay doors opened across the formation.
Hundreds of bombs were released.
High explosive and incendiary weapons, a mix designed to destroy industrial facilities and start fires.
The bombs fell for approximately 30 seconds before impacting the target area.
The Mousashino factory was hit repeatedly.
Warehouse buildings collapsed.
Assembly halls were destroyed.
Secondary explosions from fuel and ammunition storage spread fires across the complex.
Some bombs missed the primary target and hit residential areas nearby.
Apartment buildings were destroyed.
This was an inherent problem with strategic bombing from extreme altitude.
The B29s turned west, heading back towards Saipan, 1,500 miles over open ocean.
Night would fall during the return flight.
Navigation would be by stars and instruments.
The crews would have to find a small island in the middle of the Pacific in darkness.
Japanese fighters made additional attempts to engage the bombers as they departed Tokyo airspace.
These attacks were as ineffective as the earlier ones.
The B29s maintained altitude and formation.
Japanese fighters couldn’t reach them or were driven off by defensive fire.
Below, Tokyo was burning.
Smoke rose thousands of feet.
Emergency crews responded to fires and building collapses across multiple districts.
The Mousashino factory was destroyed.
Of the 111 B29s that had taken off from Saipan, 24 aborted for mechanical reasons and never reached Tokyo.
87 reached the target area.
One was shot down over Japan by anti-aircraft fire.
Several more were lost on the return flight due to engine failures, battle damage, or fuel exhaustion.
But more than 80 B29s returned to Saipan safely.
They had bombed Tokyo from 31,000 ft, caused significant damage, and returned.
Japan had been unable to prevent this.
November 25th, 1944.
Imperial Japanese Headquarters Tokyo.
Senior officers met to assess the previous day’s raid and evaluate defensive options.
The damage report from the Mousashino factory was severe.
Approximately 30% of production capacity had been destroyed.
Reconstruction would take months.
Hundreds of workers had been killed or injured.
Critical machinery was damaged beyond repair.
But the production loss wasn’t the primary concern.
The primary concern was that Japan had no effective defense against B29s operating at 31,000 ft.
The officers understood the tactical problem.
The B29’s altitude advantage was decisive.
Japanese fighters were optimized for combat at lower altitudes.
The Mitsubishi A6M0 performed well between 15,000 and 20,000 ft.
Above 25,000 ft, performance degraded significantly.
At 31,000 ft, the Zero was barely controllable.
Other Japanese fighters had better high altitude capabilities.
The Nakajima K44 and Kawasaki K61 could reach 30,000 ft, but even these aircraft struggled above that altitude.
And the B29s operated at 31,000 ft while maintaining full combat effectiveness.
Some officers proposed ramming attacks.
pilots would climb as high as possible and deliberately ram B29s, trading one fighter and pilot for one bomber.
This proposal was rejected as tactically unsound.
Japan didn’t have enough pilots or aircraft to stop raids of 100 plus bombers through ramming tactics.
Trained pilots were becoming increasingly scarce.
Aircraft production was limited.
A 1:1 exchange ratio was unsustainable.
Japanese engineers were already working on high alitude interceptor designs, modified engines, turbochargers, pressurized cockpits, but these developments would take months at minimum.
The B29 raids wouldn’t wait.
The assessment was bleak.
Japan couldn’t stop B29 raids on the home islands.
The best outcome would be inflicting enough casualties to make the raids unsustainable for the Americans.
But everyone present understood that American industrial capacity made this unlikely.
The B-29 raids continued throughout November and December.
November 27th brought another raid on Tokyo with 81 B29s.
Same altitude, same results.
Japanese fighters attempted interception with minimal success.
Bombs hit targets.
The B29s returned to Saipan with acceptable losses.
December 3rd, Nagoya.
70 B29s targeted aircraft manufacturing facilities.
Significant damage was inflicted.
American losses were minimal.
December 13th, the Mitsubishi aircraft works in Nagoya was bombed.
The factory that produced Japanese fighters was being attacked by bombers that Japanese fighters couldn’t stop effectively.
The pattern was consistent.
B29s flew at 31,000 ft.
Japanese fighters struggled to intercept.
A few managed attack runs, but were largely ineffective.
Anti-aircraft fire was mostly futile.
Bombs hit targets.
B29s returned to base with losses that didn’t stop the campaign.
For Japanese civilians, the psychological impact was severe.
Air raid sirens became routine, multiple times per week.
People evacuated to shelters, explosions were heard, buildings were destroyed, and the raids continued regardless of defensive efforts.
Japanese propaganda claimed large numbers of B29s were being shot down, but civilians saw the destroyed factories and burned districts.
They understood that the defensive claims didn’t match reality.
January 1945, the raids intensified.
More B29s were arriving in the Marianas.
Saipan, Tinian, and Guam had extensive bomber bases, hundreds of B-29s, thousands of air crew.
The largest strategic bombing campaign in history was being assembled.
American tactics evolved.
Early raids focused on precision bombing of specific military and industrial targets.
But precision bombing from 31,000 ft was difficult.
Weather conditions obscured targets.
Bombing accuracy was limited.
Many bombs missed their intended targets.
American planners changed strategy.
Area bombing replaced precision strikes.
Incendiary bombs replaced high explosives.
The goal shifted from destroying specific buildings to burning entire industrial districts.
March 9th through 10th, 1945, 334 B29s attacked Tokyo, but not at high altitude.
The bombers flew at 5,000 to 9,000 ft at night, carrying incendiary bombs.
The objective was creating firestorms.
The raid was devastatingly effective.
Over 15 square miles of Tokyo burned.
Approximately 100,000 people in one night.
This was more deaths than either atomic bomb would cause later.
It was the single deadliest air raid of the war.
At low altitude, Japanese fighters could reach the B29s, and they did engage.
Some B29s were shot down.
About 14 were lost, but 320 survived, and the damage they inflicted was catastrophic.
The March 9th raid demonstrated that B29s could operate effectively at any altitude.
High altitude for precision when needed, low altitude for area destruction when that was the objective.
Japanese defenses couldn’t stop either approach effectively.
Additional firebombing raids followed.
Osaka, Coobe, Nagoya, Yokohama.
Every major Japanese city was targeted.
B29 systematically burned Japan’s urban areas.
Not just military and industrial targets, but entire neighborhoods.
By summer 1945, most Japanese cities had been bombed repeatedly.
Industrial capacity was crippled.
Transportation networks were destroyed.
Food distribution had collapsed.
The civilian population was starving.
The economy was failing.
Japanese military leadership understood the war was lost.
But cultural factors and military tradition made surrender difficult to accept.
The war continued.
August 6th, 1945.
a.m.
Hiroshima.
A single B29 named Inola Gay dropped a single atomic bomb.
The city was destroyed in seconds.
Approximately 70,000 people instantly.
Another 70,000 died from radiation effects over the following weeks and months.
August 9th, 1945.
a.m.
Nagasaki.
Another B-29 dropped another atomic bomb.
Approximately 40,000 were killed instantly.
Another 40,000 died from radiation.
The atomic bombs received extensive historical attention.
They represented new technology.
They were the weapons that ended the war.
But the conventional B29 bombing campaign had caused more total destruction, more deaths, more infrastructure damage.
The atomic bombs were the final demonstration of what the B-29 represented.
American air power that Japan couldn’t stop or effectively contest.
August 15th, 1945, Emperor Hidohhito announced Japan’s surrender.
The war ended.
The B29 campaign had lasted 9 months, November 1944 to August 1945.
During that period, B29s flew over 30,000 sorties.
They dropped over 160,000 tons of bombs.
They destroyed approximately 40% of Japan’s urban areas.
Japanese industry was crippled beyond recovery.
Japanese air defenses shot down approximately 450 B-29s during the entire campaign.
This represented about 1.5% loss rate per sorty.
This was unsustainable for Japan, but completely manageable for American operations.
American factories produced B-29s faster than Japan could destroy them.
By the war’s end, over 3,000 B29s had been manufactured.
Japan destroyed 450 total.
The production differential was insurmountable.
After the war, Japanese military analysts acknowledged that the B-29 was a weapon they had no effective counter for.
The altitude advantage made interception nearly impossible.
The range meant bombers could operate from bases beyond Japan’s reach.
The payload meant each raid caused significant damage.
Some Japanese officers stated that if B-29 raids had begun earlier in the war, Japan would have surrendered sooner.
Once the systematic destruction of Japanese cities started, continuing the war became increasingly pointless.
Defeat became inevitable when B29s began operating from the Marianas.
November 24th, 1944.
The first major B-29 raid on Tokyo.
Japanese fighter pilots climbed to 31,000 ft and discovered they couldn’t engage the bombers effectively.
Anti-aircraft gunners fired at maximum elevation and watched shells explode below the targets.
Observers watched through binoculars as American bombers flew over Tokyo and dropped bombs without meaningful opposition.
That was the day Japan lost control of its own airspace, lost the ability to defend the home islands, lost any realistic hope of preventing American bombers from systematically destroying Japan’s capacity to continue the war.
The B29s flew too high to stop.
Japan had no solution.
For 9 months, they endured the bombing campaign.
Then they surrendered.
