The U.S made several bombing raids against Tokyo during WWII, the worst of them was Operation Meetinghouse, conducted on the night of March 9-10, 1945.

The U.S made several bombing raids against Tokyo during WWII, the worst of them was Operation Meetinghouse, conducted on the night of March 9-10, 1945.

The U.S made several bombing raids against Tokyo during WWII, the worst of them was Operation Meetinghouse, conducted on the night of March 9-10, 1945.

334 B-29 bombers headed for Tokyo, 279 of them dropped 1,665(500.000 bombs) tons of incendiary bombs, obliterating 16 square miles of the city.
This is considered as the most destructive single air raid in history, with 100 000 dead, mostly civilians.
Tokyo was highly vulnerable to firebombing, as most civilian buildings were constructed from wood. This made the napalm inside the bombs very effective, igniting everything in range.The heat, which is reported to have reached a temperature of 1,800 degrees in some locations, sucked the oxygen out of the air.People burned, roasted, or suffocated to death.
There are many horrific survivor stories about what happened on the ground.
As people began to flee, many thought of water as a safe place from the heat.The Futaba School had a huge swimming pool, people in the area gathered there seeking shelter in the pool or inside the building.The next morning, thousands of corpses were found inside.
The pool was packed with corpses aswell, it was filled with water the night before, but dry in the morning.The superheated ambient air boiled the water out of the pool, and the people along with it.Piles of charred human corpses beyond recognition littered the streets everywhere, and the city’s river were full of bodies drifting around.
The firestorm created tornadic activity that caused updrafts in the flames and in turn created massive turbulence. Some winds flipped a number of B-29s over.
A bombardier, recalled that"As we opened the bomb bay doors, we were met with a sickening odor of burning human flesh"
This single raid left around 100 000 people dead, injuring a lot more, and over 1,000,000 people became homeless.
It's often mentioned to be more destructive than Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.
14 planes and 96 airmen never came back, some due to anti aircraft, and some were caught in upward currents of the massive fires.

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