Our country has now developed into a top-ranked power in the world, but decades ago, we were still the target of invasion by various powers. In the first half of the 20th century, with the rise of fascism, the alliance of countries led by Japan, Germany and Italy set off a war that spread throughout the world. The most harmful to our country was the war of aggression against China launched by Japan. During Japan's 14-year invasion of our country, it not only occupied a lot of our territory, but also committed many unforgettable crimes. These crimes are unprecedented and unspeakable, which are full of righteous indignation. Many people are still deeply harmed. It is inevitable that deaths and injuries will occur in the war, but there are still some events that can even be called disasters, both in the scope of the impact and the number of casualties are shocking. This is the case with the United States' revenge against Japan during in World War II. Japan has not been willing to mention this incident yet. After all, it is a total of 600,000 people. So what has the United States done? Why do this?
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However, before the United States dropped the atomic bomb, it had carried out several catastrophic attacks on Japan. For example, the Tokyo bomb we are going to talk about today is the craziest revenge and the most terrifying fire attack method in history. This attack caused nearly a quarter of Tokyo to be razed to the ground. The crazy sea of fire covered 600,000 people, causing more than 80,000 deaths and more than 100,000 seriously injured. , even if you don’t know the specific process, you can imagine how miserable it would be through the data alone. Moreover, most of the casualties and injuries caused by this operation were civilians living here, which caused great controversy. So why do you say that this incident is a revenge operation by the United States?
Reasons for revenge
When Japan launched an invasion of our country, due to our army's tenacious resistance, it forcibly blocked the Japanese army's strategic goal of "destroying China in March". Then as the front line was lengthened, the reserve military supplies of the Japanese army became their biggest problem. In order to provide more resources, the Japanese army began to have bad ideas about Southeast Asia, which was still a colony of the great powers at that time. However, such excessive aggression of Japan finally aroused dissatisfaction among the great powers. They decided not to indulge Japan's aggression, so they restricted and suppressed Japan's oil supply and economy.
At that time, Japan had been completely obscured by ambitions. The Japanese army believed that it had the power to dominate the world, so in 1941, the Pearl Harbor incident that shocked the world. This surprise attack on the US military launched by Pearl Harbor was quite successful. Within two hours, the Japanese military used extremely small losses to destroy eight battleships, , 3 cruisers, , 3 destroyers, and 8 auxiliary ships stationed in Pearl Harbor, and caused more than 2,400 deaths of US soldiers, which was enough to become a shame in the history of the US military's war.
US military plans to revenge
Originally, the United States adopted a wait-and-see attitude towards World War II, but it just wanted to carry out economic development through weapons trading. However, the Pearl Harbor surprise attack launched by Japan completely angered the United States and eventually caused the Japanese army to truly suffer the injury of being forced to surrender. The United States declared war on Japan after the Pearl Harbor incident and began to formulate a number of revenge plans against Japan, the most important of which was the air strikes on Japan's mainland. However, the air raids before the Tokyo bombing were all smaller in scale, and it is not difficult to see afterwards that those times were previews of the last action.
The first rehearsal conducted by the United States was the Doolittle air strike in April 1942. In order to ensure the success of the operation, the US military sent Army Air Force Lt. Colonel James Harold Doolittle, who was the most advanced B-25 bomber at that time. However, there were still two accidents in this operation.The unexpected rehearsed by was a secret operation, but on April 18, when the US "Hornet" aircraft carrier rushed to Japan with a B-25 bomber preparing to perform the mission, it was discovered by the Japanese ship , which was carrying a patrol mission here about 650 nautical miles away from Japan. In order to avoid being discovered in advance, can only order the bomber , which performs the mission, to temporarily start the mission, and at this time, they were 10 hours ahead of their planned takeoff time.
However, the risk of taking off early is very high, because when making a plan, the most important factor is the fuel-guaranteed navigation mileage. Taking off 10 hours early means more than 300 kilometers of more flights. If there is a little error during the process, it may even lead to failure of return.
However, Doolittle decided to act in advance, which also brought enough pain to the Japanese. Originally, they believed that the US bombers would not arrive until April 19, and based on speculation, they deployed defense and counterattack measures when the attack came. How could they have thought that the plane would arrive in Tokyo on April 18? Tokyo was not yet ready for war at that time. When the local people saw the plane in the sky, they even thought that it was Japanese pilots conducting the exercise. When they raised their hands to celebrate the success of the exercise, the explosive carried on the plane also poured down.
However, there was another emergencies in this first rehearsal. The United States dispatched 16 aircraft, but when these 16 aircraft were about to arrive around Japan, 14 were lost. Doolittle had no choice but to announce that except for the unresolved direction, the remaining 14 aircraft of can be bombed at will as long as they fly to the territory of Japan. Such a decision means that as long as it is bombed, it is considered to be completed.
Under such arrangement, most of the bombers in the team could only enter Japanese airspace from all directions without target, and then bombard randomly after they arrived in Tokyo and other places. has lost its concentration and target nature, and the damage caused to Japan by this operation is minimal, and the intensity of the attack is far from what we expect. , and after the bombing operation, because they had to fly more than 300 kilometers on their return flight, they could not fly back to the aircraft carrier that was carrying them at that time, so they had to be forced to land in China. Another plane was detained by the Soviet army when he landed in Vladivostok after seeing the hope of staying in China. In the end, the operation team changed from 75 to more than 50 at the beginning. Some of them accidentally fell into the Japanese occupied area while skydiving and became prisoners. Some unfortunately died during the forced landing. The others were rescued with the help of National Government . Although the Doolittle air strike was not completed well enough, it undoubtedly gave anger to the insults received by the US military in Pacific War , suppressed the Japanese army to a certain extent, and brought a turning point for the subsequent Pacific War. After the first rehearsal of
B-29 bomber 10
Japan and the United States fought more and more fiercely on Pacific battlefield . At the same time, in order to retaliate against the United States' Doolittle air strike over Tokyo, the Japanese army launched the world's famous Midway Naval Battle on June 4, 1942. But Japan may never have imagined that would lose like this in this war. In this war, Japan lost four aircraft carriers, while the US military only lost one aircraft carrier. Such damage to important weapons has led to a decline in Japan on the Pacific battlefield.
After the Japanese army was gradually at a disadvantage, the US military thought about planning an air strike on Tokyo, Japan. It happened that in 1944, the US military developed a B-29 bomber that was more powerful than the B-25.This fighter is known as the "super air fortress bomber", with a maximum speed of 563 kilometers per hour and a flight altitude of more than 10,000 meters, which is higher than Mount Everest , and and can be continuously 6,430 kilometers under sufficient fuel. You should know that this distance is longer than Yangtze River . The most terrifying thing is that it can load nearly 9,000 kilograms of bomb . This number makes its combat power and destructive power very terrifying. It can be called the world's number one during World War II.
In order to continue the revenge that had not achieved the expected results, the United States successfully bombed Tokyo, and the United States carefully arranged three rehearsals. The first rehearsal took place on June 15, 1944. This time it was not as large as planned. Only 68 B-29 bombers were arranged to take off from Chengdu Airport in China, and finally successfully bombed the Hachiman Steel Plant on Kyushu Island, Japan. 's rehearsal only more than 40 of them successfully hit the target, and five aircraft were lost, four of them accidentally crashed, so it was not considered a success or a failure. After that, the United States won many battles on the Pacific battlefield and successfully occupied Mariana Islands . The 20th Air Force was then recruited under the jurisdiction of the 21st Bomber Command of the U.S. Army. Later, at the end of June 1944, the United States successfully occupied Saipan in the Mariana Islands. At this point, the United States finally had an area where it could set up a military base closest to Japan's territory. So the US military began to continue to formulate plans to bomb Tokyo with this place. The second rehearsal of
B-29 bomber
After the base was built, the US military formulated a fairly complete plan and started the second rehearsal. However, the scale of this time is far from comparable for the first time. This time, the US military actually dispatched 110 bombers, dozens more than the first time, not to mention that the bombers this time are also more advanced than the first time. But this time, an unexpected situation still occurred. When the B-29 bombers that were carrying out the plan collectively arrived in the Japanese territory, they found that the sky above Tokyo was blocked by a thick layer of dark clouds. It was not easy to see Tokyo from such a field of view, let alone accurate bombing.
But the US military is now on the string and has to fire it, so they can only use radar to determine the approximate orientation of themselves and the target. However, the flight altitude at that time was 10,000 meters, so when the radar effect was average, they could only attack the following immediately. In the end, of course, the hit rate was pitiful. was also discovered by the Japanese patrol team. Japanese military headquarters immediately ordered more than 100 fighters to intercept, and the two sides also changed from sneak attacks to melee.
However, due to the technological gap, it is obvious that the US military has stronger combat effectiveness, so the Japanese army quickly fell into a disadvantage. However, the number of Japanese fighter jets recovered a certain trend and successfully shot down two bombers and injured 11. The result of this bombing of is still as unsatisfactory as last time, because only 30 aircraft found the target, and only 10% of the hit rate among them can only be regarded as winning a little bit.
shows up in bud
With the second rehearsal, the US military realized that the impact of weather on this air-to-ground mission is very great, and because Japan is an island country, the weather is difficult to determine. If they cannot solve this problem, if the goal is not achieved, the losses to them will sooner or later accumulate. At this moment, a military strategist who can be called changing the fate of the US-Japan war appeared on the stage of history. This person is the American Curtis Limei . He began to serve as the commander of the 21st Bomber Unit in January 1945, so this fire attack tactic that shocked the world began to sprout.
When it comes to fire attack, what everyone thinks of is the Battle of Red Cliff written in the history books. This ancient war caused tens of thousands of people to die due to the tactics of fire attack, and directly turned the situation into the Three Kingdoms. However, this fire attack tactic is nothing in the face of the tactics formulated by Li Mei . Because of this fire attack, it directly determined the pattern of the US-Japan War at the end of World War II, and almost determined the defeat of Japan. It can even be said that the "end" of the entire World War II began from this.
formulate strategy
Curtis Li Mei made two biggest changes after carefully comparing the outcomes of the previous two bombings. One is to change the daytime attack to the nighttime attack, which can greatly enhance the concealment of the operation, and the chance of dark clouds appearing at night is also smaller. Although it will make it difficult to find the target at night, such a problem has also been solved by Li Mei. The second is to turn the previous bomb thrown at altitude of 10,000 meters into a low-altitude bomb between 1,500 meters and 2,000 meters, which is the so-called carpet bombing. This can increase accuracy. So how did Li Mei solve the difficulty of finding targets? That is to change all the bombs thrown in previous operations into incendiary bombs. Such large-scale incendiary bomb throwing will also solve the lighting problem, and such changes will also upgrade the bombing to "fire attack". The most important point of is about the increase in lethality. Because Japan is a region with frequent earthquakes, most of the houses use wooden structures. Moreover, because of their own land area and extremely dense population, the lethality of fire attack has also reached the highest level due to multiple reasons. So, the third preview of the Tokyo bombing began.
1 On the night of February 23, 2045, 174 B-29 bombers flew towards Japan. Unlike the previous two times, there was no error this time, because the previous two rehearsals had made Li Mei realize many problems and improve them. finally, on February 24, 174 bombers flew to Tokyo accurately and dropped 45 tons of special incendiary bombs, namely napalm bomb . This gasoline bomb can produce a high-temperature flame of 1000 degrees at the moment of explosion, and it also has a certain adhesion. can even cause huge damage to targets in the water. After reacting with water, it can also produce hydrogen gas to burn again. This time the preview was quite successful. The area of nearly 2.56 square kilometers in Tokyo was completely transformed into scorched earth . This success led Li Mei to decide to plan the ultimate fire attack plan.
Desperate and crazy Fire Attack
Li Mei was very cautious about this ultimate plan, and he made some improvements in order to increase the chance of success. In order to reduce the weight of the bomber so as to carry more incendiary bombs, he removed all the guns, cannons and other weapons and ammunition on the plane, which was a completely desperate gambling. Just half a month later, on March 9, a total of 334 B-29 bombers took off from the airport in the Mariana Islands to Tokyo, Japan, and the largest air strike in human history officially began.
This day was the day before Japan's " Military Day ". In order to celebrate this festival, all Japanese people were carrying out various preparations. However, no one expected that in the early morning of the festival, the real disaster would come. First, the two bombers dropped two incendiary bombs when they were only 500 meters away from the ground. The flames ignited by at the moment of landing provided obvious coordinates for the remaining bombers. Then the remaining 332 bombers began to dive and threw more than 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs into the Northeast, and dozens of aircraft spilled dozens of tons of gasoline.
Gasoline quickly gathered the scattered flames together, forming a terrible flame storm, which began to rage on the ground of Tokyo. For a time, the prosperous Tokyo became a hell on earth. The burning flames swallowed everything in sight, surrounding 600,000 people like barbecue.The temperature on the ground in Tokyo quickly rose to 1,000 degrees Celsius. Wherever the flames arrived, everything was melting rapidly. Even due to the high temperature, many places where the flames had not yet covered began to burn. In such an environment, even if you jump into the river, you will never escape death.
htmlOn December 10, the operation ended before dawn. Tokyo no longer had its former appearance. Only a mess and burnt corpses everywhere, with burnt smells everywhere. The bombing directly caused a quarter of Tokyo to be razed to the ground, more than 26,000 buildings were burned, more than 80,000 people were killed, and more than 100,000 were seriously injured. Afterwards, Japan took 25 days to clean up the bodies, and their identities were no longer recognizable.
scored twice and
things have not completely ended here. The US military saw the significant effect this time, so in just 30 hours, the US military dispatched more than 300 bombers to attack Nagoya; then on March 13, an air strike on Japan's second largest city, Osaka , Osaka, and Osaka also suffered unprecedented damage and was poured out 1,700 tons of incendiary bombs. The 20.7 square kilometers area was completely turned into ruins in just three hours. Three days later, the US military launched air strikes on other Japanese cities. After on May 9, 1945, in order to celebrate the perfect victory on the European battlefield, the US military sent another 300 bombers to launch air strikes on Tokyo. The bombing lasted for two and a half hours, directly destroying the 56 square kilometers of area. Even the burning flames in Tokyo, Japan can be seen on Pacific .
The matter has not completely ended here. On May 26, 1945, the US military sent hundreds of B-29 bombers to Tokyo for air strikes, throwing 4,000 tons of incendiary bombs into the northwest part of Tokyo, and tens of thousands of people were killed or injured in Tokyo again. In just two months, the US military carried out three air strikes on Tokyo, killing 140,000 people. Since then, Tokyo has become a dead city. The reason why the United States has been bombing Tokyo is because the Japanese army had been deceived by the spirit of aggression advocated by the leaders at the end of World War II, and must resist stubbornly until the end. Even after Tokyo suffered three bombings, Japan still refused to surrender. Hideki Tojo and others led by were still shouting incompetently, so the United States finally threw atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.
The Tokyo bombing in 1945 can be said to be one of the biggest disasters in the history of human war. Because most of the people who died and injured in this bombing were civilians living in Tokyo, rather than soldiers who threatened our lives at any time on the battlefield. , so this attack also caused huge controversy. After all, ordinary people are not guilty. The ones who really have to bear all this should be the madmen who started the war. It is precisely because of their actions that create the current situation.
