Firebirds' Flight

A dream came true last week for U.S. Army aviators: they got their chance to loose avalanches of fire bombs on Tokyo and Nagoya, and they proved that, properly kindled, Japanese cities will burn like autumn leaves.

In Tokyo, where the main administrative and business section had been rebuilt in reinforced concrete after the 1923 earthquake, the B-29 firebirds' commanders selected a 10-sq.-mi. area of flimsier construction, east of the Imperial Palace. In Nagoya--which had suffered little from earthquakes, and so had not been modernized--it was a 5-sq.-mi. area in the heart of the city.

For these strikes, 300 Superforts flew from Saipan, Tinian and (for the first time) from Guam. Each carried seven to eight tons of 500-lb. clusters of new M69 incendiary bombs. Each cluster comprised scores of 6-lb. incendiary bombs containing a jelly-gasoline compound. The total: about 700,000 incendiaries.

Tokyo Bonfire. The great planes took off about sunset. At Tokyo there were few enemy night fighters in the air, and the antiaircraft fire was set for 20,000 to 30,000 feet. This time, the B-29s foxed the Jap gunners and came in between 5,000 and 7,000. Visibility was good; the wind was moderate.

Brigadier General Thomas S. Power, leader of the wing flying from Guam, stayed over the target 90 minutes, making red crosses on a map to show blocks where fires broke out. He wore his red crayon down. A favorable wind spread the flames to cover 15 square miles.

Never before had there been an incendiary attack of comparable scale. The Luftwaffe's "great fire raid" on the City of London (Dec. 29, 1940), made with a maximum of 200 tons of incendiaries, burned not more than one square mile. Major General Curtis E. LeMay's Marianas firebirds were in another league.

Emergency Roost. Cautious LeMay waited until pictorial proof was in before he issued his report: "This fire left nothing but twisted, tumbled-down rubble in its path. . . . The area totally destroyed . . . covers a total of 422,500,000 square feet, which is approximately 9,700 acres, or 15 square miles." Half a dozen key installations such as railroad stations and oil plants were destroyed, as well as "hundreds of small business establishments directly concerned with the war industry, many important administrative buildings and other thousands of home industries."

Several homebound B-29s made emergency landings on Iwo Jima's hastily repaired southern airfield. The Marines who had given their lives to win Iwo had not died in vain. Only two B-29s were lost.

Only 48 hours later, the second blow of the same size was swung against Nagoya (pop. 1,500,000), 150 miles west of Tokyo. Two-thirds of the crews who had flown against Tokyo were out again. All but one returned.

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