Author(s): Mark Lardas; Edouard A. Groult (Illustrator)

History

In November 1944, the US Army Air Force launched a 111-plane B-29 strike against Tokyo, the first since the morale-boosting Doolittle Raid of 1942. From then until VJ-Day, Tokyo would be hit 25 times: in 20 raids from B-29s based in the Marianas and by five strikes from US Navy carrier task forces. The campaign included the single deadliest air raid in human history, when an estimated 100,000 people were killed by the firestorm created by Operation Meetinghouse on March 10, 1945. This book, the first to examine the full history of the United States' air campaign against the greatest target in Japan, looks at the complex array of airpower that the USAAF and US Navy used to eliminate Tokyo's strategic value. It considers how the campaign developed from daylight bombing to firebombing and antiship mining, and finally how the target was handed over to the US Navy, whose carrier-based bombers and fighter-bombers battered Tokyo during July and August 1945. Using superb battlescenes, maps, and 3D diagrams, this volume presents a detailed picture of how Tokyo was vanquished from the air.