1945: Firebombing of Tokyo

On March 10, 1945, 300 American bombers drop almost 2,000 tons of incendiaries on Tokyo, Japan, destroying large portions of the Japanese capital and killing 100,000 civilians. The attack was part of a U.S. effort to force Japan into surrender in the final months of World War II. The conflagration caused by the incendiary bombs quickly engulfed Tokyo's wooden residential structures, creating a firestorm that replaced oxygen with lethal gases, superheated the atmosphere, and caused hurricane-like winds that blew a wall of fire across the city. As a result of the attack, 10 square miles of eastern Tokyo were entirely obliterated, and an estimated 250,000 buildings were destroyed. Over the next nine days, U.S. bombers flew similar missions against Nagoya, Osaka, and Kobe. In August, U.S. atomic attacks against Hiroshima and Nagasaki would finally force Japan's hand.