Fragments of the Incendiary Bombing of Japan

Nearly 70 Japanese cities were incendiary bombed in the final months of the Pacific War when Japan’s empire had vastly shrunk, it had become obvious their defeat was imminent, and any possibility of a durable defense had disappeared. After capturing the island of Iwo Jima, the United States was able to mount a sustained and effective bombing campaign against the Japanese archipelago, often carrying out multiple bombing raids in a single night.

The most well-known of these incendiary air raids was in Tokyo, on the evening of March 9-10, 1945. Large swaths of Tokyo became a simple wasteland and more than 100,000 people died in a single night. The bombing campaigns focused on other cities of comparable size, like the industrial hub, Osaka, or the port city, Nagoya. But, simply put, there were only so many major industrial cities for the United States to target. So, their targets gradually turned to small and medium size cities with little industrial value or output.

The Tokyo incendiary raid also caused thousands of people to flee for the countryside, recognizing that the capital and industrial hub would not be safe. The unfortunate coincidence of this, is that as populations swelled in Japanese people’s ancestral hometowns, the United States began bombing many of those cities. Moreover, as American military documents and scholarship show, the means of targeting Japanese cities had long privileged a strategy of area destruction over precision air targeting, which explicitly meant more civilian casualties. But this was an overt tactic from the United States, what one scholar has called “morale bombing”––an effort to not only physically, but psychologically destroy the enemy. The incendiary bombings of Japan killed at least 187,000 people. According to U.S. military records, the average percentage of Japanese cities destroyed by incendiary bombs was 49.18%.

In what follows, I will show how individuals were terrorized, how the United States military was indiscriminate in their bombing efforts, and share small fragments of each city’s story and how they have sought to remember and memorialize these events. 

This project is not interested in historical counterfactuals, such as the idea of a land invasion of Japan. Nor is it interested in making comparisons to the myriad of well-documented crimes against humanity that the Japanese government and military has committed elsewhere. Finally, this project is not interested in supporting the so-called “victim narrative” of Japan in World War II, where individuals’ suffering in the atomic bombings, for example, are placed upon a pedestal above all else

For those of you familiar with Japanese history, I hope that this project will produce a new way of seeing the incendiary bombings through an online platform and extensive use of media.

For those of you less familiar with Japanese history, I urge you to consider what constitutes a war crime, what war guilt means to Americans, and how World War II is taught and remembered today.

Toyohashi city is located about halfway between Osaka and Tokyo, along the Pacific coastline in Aichi prefecture. The U.S. military incendiary bombed Toyohashi on the evening of June 19/20, 1945.

624 people were killed in the incendiary bombing of Toyohashi.

This late 19th century map shows an extremely detailed land survey of Toyohashi city. Hundreds of these surveys were created in the late 1880s. Circled in red is Toyohashi's city center, with a railroad line cutting through it. To the west is the bay, and to the east are mountains. The area circled in red would later be incendiary bombed, as the second image shows. Areas highlighted in orange were incendiary bombed. As is shown, a large portion of the built up area was destroyed.

Toyohashi had once been referred to as a "town of thread" (糸の町) or a "silkworm city" (蚕都). But around the turn of the 20th century, two military formations were stationed there. In 1884, the 18th infantry regiment established its headquarters in Toyohashi, and in 1908, the 15th division established its headquarters. Soon the city would become known as a "military city" (軍都).

According to the  XXI Bomber Command's Tactical Mission Report  of the bombing of Toyohashi, "Toyohashi has assumed greater military importance in recent years. In 1939 this city acquired a large Navy arsenal and is reported to be making aircraft cannon and machine guns. It also has an Army arsenal and miscellaneous industries. Situated on the main Tokaido Railroad line, Toyohashi was formerly a silk center and an army school area."

In anticipation of the possibility of air raids, Toyohashi, like most cities across Japan, staged air defense drills.

Beginning October 12, 1941, Toyohashi staged large scale air defense training that lasted for five days. At 9 a.m. an air raid alarm sounded three times.

Again, between February 17 and February 26, 1942, after the Pacific War had begun, Toyohashi conducted extensive air raid defense training.

The warning sirens would become an unfortunate normality in the final months of the war.

As mentioned above, the US military identified targets in Toyohashi as producing war materials. The map below indicates the locations of the two targets identified in and around Toyohashi, but the incendiary bombing largely targeted the area between these two targets that included a "parade ground," "hospital," "gas works," and "school."

Ultimately  the field orders  given to the bombing group was far more simple.

"Target: Toyohashi Urban Area primary radar and visual."

One Toyohashi resident, Toyota Uzuhiko, left a diary, which contained his experiences from late 1944 to June 19th, 1945 when Toyohashi was bombed. In the early 20th century, he was an artillery soldier, but by age 52, he changed course, started a medicine shop, and engaged with local history. In the handful of months that his diary describes, air raid warnings, signaled by radio and air horn, were frequent, arriving in the middle of the day or late at night, and always with no more than five or six days between each warning. November 23, 1944 was the first time that Toyohashi experienced an air raid warning, as bombers flew above nearby Ise bay. Between November 23, 1944 and June 20, 1945, Toyohashi sounded an air raid warning or cautionary alert 254 times––more than once per day. As Toyota's diary hints at, the disruption to daily life was extreme.

"This year since November, the Kyūshū area suffered considerable bombings. That was the enemies flying out from bases on the Chinese continent....On the other hand, the front in the Philippines' Leyte (gulf), has become fierce hour by hour. So, they aim for dispersion of our airpower and destruction of the source of our supplies and, from their newly obtained Mariana archipelago bases, they will probably make the plan to bomb our homeland through that long march, is what everyone has thought. As expected, today I saw the enemy planes' raid for the first time in the sky above our region. That is, two B29 planes crying out towards Japan, intruded at high altitude; after they scouted the riverbank of Ise, and without dropping a bomb, they disappeared. From now on, taking this as the beginning, we must prepare for these air raids to become a frequent thing. Because of national unity and perfect air defense, if we fight with these repulsive enemies, I feel as though they will boil the earth and dance on our flesh. Below I think I will write, one by one, the fighting state as it is. As long as my life exists." -Toyota Uzuhiko, November 23, 1944, in  Sei Abe, "Toyota Uzuhiko "Toyohashi chihō kūshū nisshi" wo yomu (1)" 

"At 7pm, again a preliminary warning. Since I saw those detestable enemy planes with my own eyes in the afternoon, lights and torches, and the like are under strict supervision during an air raid. The world was wrapped and closed in merely the one color black. I left the preparation to group leader Seifuku, and to hell with it I thought, so until the air raid I went to bed. Maybe around 9:20 pm, without suffering an air raid, the notice was canceled, and I slept as I was in my air raid defense clothing until some time in the morning." -Toyota Uzuhiko, December 13, 1944,  in ibid. 

"Before long, one flight formation of enemies that had probably laid waste to Nagoya could be seen in the distant north, facing southeast and escaping. Without any sort of formation, they looked like a flock of Russet Sparrows. Two fellow fighter planes, clinging onto this group could be seen, and made me nervous....Around the time [bombers and fighter planes] had already passed over head, I went out to look, and they had already escaped to the far southeastern area. As I was captivated by this, again the ground rumbled out and the earth quaked. Around this time, all of heaven and the entire world's cloud of planes appeared, and many of them appeared one by one in a straight line, while among them there were also those that appeared directly over head." -Toyota Uzuhiko, January 14, 1945, in  Sei, Abe, "Toyota Uzuhiko "Toyohashi chihō kūshū nisshi" wo yomu (3)" 

By the time the fires burned out the next morning, around 90 percent of the city area had been burned.

The June 19/20, 1945 incendiary bombing of Toyohashi was relatively unexpected. An air raid warning sounded in the evening of the 19th, but the formation headed towards Nagoya northwest of Toyohashi. At 11 pm, another air raid warning sounded, but before long, the warning cleared. Sometime between 11:40pm and 12:40am, the bombing began. According to multiple sources, the United States Air Force used machine gun fire in addition to incendiary bombs.

Toyama is a city and prefecture facing the Sea of Japan. It is known for its plentiful snowfall in the winter.

2,275 people were killed in the incendiary bombing of Toyama city, and more than 99 percent of the city was destroyed.

Like many cities in Japan during the late 19th century, the number of farmers declined and factory workers increased. Toyama's population declined as a percentage of the nation's total population, until the last year of the war when the American bombing campaign intensified.

Citizens fled the largest industrial cities like Tokyo and Osaka, assuming they would be relatively safe elsewhere, often in their ancestral hometowns.

The number of factories and factory workers skyrocketed in the late 1930s as Japan engaged in open warfare in China and prepared for a possible war with the United States. It is unclear what caused such a sharp increase in the number of factories in Toyama prefecture, but it is possible that the number of home workshops were counted as factories.

"*Read this carefully as it may save your life, or the life of a relative or friend. In the next few days the military instalations (sic) in some or all of the cities, named on the reverse side of this leaflet, will be destroyed by American bombs."

Like other cities, Toyama prepared for air raids with training. Perhaps less like some of the cities in this collection, the United States identified a number of targets germane to their mission, including many hydroelectric plants, and many other metal and chemical plants.

However, in the  Tactical Mission Report  of the incendiary bombing of Toyama, none of these surrounding industries were targeted. The report did note that the city––although prefecture or region would be a better term here––produced a variety of war material.

"The city is an important producer of ball and roller bearings, machine and precision tools and special steel products. A magnesium plant along with the largest aluminum company in Japan is located there. Toyama is not compact, being cut by several canals."

And the more specific the description of the attack became, it was clear that the target was the urban area, rather than precision bombing.

"The target area contained numerous fire breaks which would limit fire spread to a minimum. Numerous small and medium size industries were within the area, indicating that moderate penetration would be required."

"Primary visual and radar target: Toyama Urban Area."

Years after the fact, many survivors recorded their experiences during the air raid in a collection called The Hot Sky of Toyama.

"The B29 Looked Like a Demon!" by Ieshiro Tatsurō 家城辰郎.

Ieshiro worked in Tokyo, but was transferred to his hometown, Toyama, as the air raids intensified.

"At that time, among the young company employees, the draft notice came, and those departing for war, the official bulletin of those who died in war, those whose homes had been burned in the air raid, those whose traces were unrecoverable after an air raid, and others, came out one after the other, and a gloomy atmosphere hung in the air. On the train's passage that I took to return to Toyama from Ueno [in Tokyo], passengers' luggage piled up in a huge mound, the windows were broken, and left as is, the wind whistled into the cabin, while if you sat once, you wouldn't be able to go to the lavatory, and everyone went in and out of the windows. But because of the greatly piled up luggage, everyone went desperately insane trying to enter the train.

"When I arrived at Toyama, there still wasn't the feeling of anxiety like in Tokyo, but a relaxed atmosphere remained. But, that too, in around 2 or 3 months, as the bombing of regional cities began, would become a flurried atmosphere.

...

"On the first of August, in the evening around 10pm, the air raid warning rang, and at last the thing that must have come, arrived, and everyone jumped out of their beds, grabbed their luggage, and planned so they could always be able to run away. But a strange thing, dozens of B29s, one by one just passed above Toyama city from West to east, without dropping a single bomb, they disappeared towards the Naoetsu area.

"The air raid warning cleared, and good grief, when I entered my home and arrived in my bed, yet again there was an air raid alarm. I think the time was around 12:30 am on the 2nd. The announcer's voice flowing from the radio sounded different than usual. When I went into the garden and looked to the west sky, the sound of bombs could be heard faintly, and before long one plane, and another plane could be seen coming from the sky above Mt. Kure towards Toyama city.

During the air raid, Ieshiro and his older brother sent the women and children of their families ahead to safety. They stayed behind to watch over the home.

"At the same time, my older brother and I quietly looked up from the home's garden at the B29s passing overhead. It was like the sound of rain, and the uncountable incendiary bombs dropped made a bouncing sound, echoing off the ground every time they dropped, throwing up a hand of fire all around them. That blaze seemed like a wing, and the B29 passing slowly overhead, seemed like a demon."

Aomori sits nearly on the northernmost part of Honshu, Japan's main island, and at the edge of a large bay connecting to the Pacific and Japan seas. As such, it has a rich culture of fishing.

Aomori was incendiary bombed on the night of July 28/29, killing 728 people. According to United States military information, around 30 percent of the city was destroyed.

These three schools––Nagashima, Tabakomachi, and Uramachi Elementary Schools––all stood squarely in the center of the air raid damage area. They were some of the oldest "modern" schools in Aomori city, and as such, have their own interesting history.

In 1873, the style of school known as a "terakoya" began to be replaced based on a prefectural notification. A temporary elementary school was built on the grounds of Seikaku Temple, which would be Nagashima Elementary's antecedent.

The school continued to grow. In 1874, a new school house was completed, and in 1875, a girls section was added to the school. 22 years later, the girls section would separate from the school, establishing its own elementary school.

Schools in Aomori separated and were renamed multiple times throughout the late 19th and early 20th century. In 1877, a branch school of Nagashima elementary was built in Tabako-cho, not to be confused with the Tabakomachi elementary.

In 1910, a major fire struck Aomori, taking many schools with it, and again, forcing a reshuffling of naming and organization. But Nagashima was spared from that fire. However, in 1923, the front of the school building was burned. In 1941, an order known as the "Citizen's School Order" (国民学校令), caused the school to briefly be renamed the Aomori City Nagashima Citizen's School. In 1945, the bombing destroyed the school, and two years later, its original name resurfaced––"Aomori City Nagashima Elementary School (青森市立長島小学校).

The other two elementary schools mentioned above, Tabakomachi and Uramachi did not survive the air raid of July 1945, either. Uramachi was rebuilt in 1947 and Tabakomachi rebuilt in 1950.

The United States  identified  four major targets in and around Aomori City––"Two targets are listed for Aomori. The most important TARGET 993 includes the car-ferry terminus and adjacent port facilities. The Aomori Railroad Yards TARGET 997 are a key rail point for traffic coming in through the port or moving northbound from central Honshu. The naval base facilities are included in TARGET 996. The Nonai Oil Storage TARGET 995 is a few miles east of Aomori City."

From this description, it is apparent that there was some strategic value in Aomori harbor and its transportation facilities. But this evaluation again seems to clash with the actual state of the war when the incendiary bombing of Aomori was carried out.

As the  Tactical Mission Report  for mission on July 28/29, 1945 describes, the reason for selecting Aomori was, "the mixed industrial and residential structures within the area were considered susceptible to incendiary attack."

Additionally, advanced photography of Aomori indicated there were "no apparent defenses in the area. Little or no flak was anticipated at the 13,000-foot base altitude of attack selected."

Like Toyama, Aomori was subject to leaflet drops warning of the impending incendiary bombing. The  Tactical Mission Report  for the missions that included Aomori also included a fairly detailed reasoning for why the leaflets were dropped.

"The principal function of the CinCPac Psychological Warfare Branch was to present to the Japanese people an underlying reason for the acts of war that were being wrought against Japan....The Japanese mind had to be attuned to the progressive state of helplessness and had to be provoked into action."

"Both the Office of War Information and the Pyschological Warfare Branch originate leaflets, at least in the idea stage. Themes are chosen to conform to the calculated phases of Japanese psyhological (sic) retrogression. The actual preparation of a leaflet is entrusted primarily to Japanese prisoners of war, who, because of their very recent participation in the Japanese mentality, are best able to appeal to their compatriots."

"The possibility of prepared Japanese counter-measures was taken into consideration when this plan was made. The advantages in favor of such a plan were manifold. Psychologically speaking, naming one's targets or objective in the face of opposition was a grand gesture and displayed great strength and self-confidence. This procedure also substantiated the fundamental American martial tenent (sic) that war was not being waged against civilians. Warning the cities and the residents of them to leave would give concrete support to the essential propaganda theme that America was not fighting the Japanese people."

Despite the reasoning for dropping these leaflets being fairly straightforward, the concentrated incendiary bombing of Aomori ultimately resulted in a war on the Japanese people.

The Publication Japanese Pictorial: Grenade, produced by the headquarters of the IX Corps, seems to show this.

"Aomori, the wreck of a city of 100,000, lies on the edge of Aomori Bay at the north end of Honshu island. Extending about three miles along the bay and a mile inland, the city was unmolested thru most of the war. Just before Japan's surrender this metropolis of northern Japan received its first taste of war––a fire bomb attack by 20th Airforce Superfortresses. Warned of the raid in advance by plane-dropped leaflets, most of the inhabitants had evacuated the city, but even so, there were numerous casualties."

However,  according to historian Sheldon Garon , the Aomori prefectural governor threatened that if residents did not return home by July 28, they would become ineligible for rations.

"Aomori was completely devastated. Except for a dozen or so 2-or-3 story concrete buildings, some of them mere blackened shells, not a home or building was left standing––the entire city had been reduced to piles of rubble. Conspicuous, however, were the small safes or strong houses still standing near each burned and blasted store."

"At first the troops encountered few people in the city, but after the soldiers had been there a week or so, the Japanese began to come back from the hills and started building shacks and huts among the debris, and cleaning up and salvaging wreckage."

"Aomori must be rebuilt, because it is so essential to Japan, being the only all-weather transportation and communication link Honshu has with the northern island of Hokkaido."

Between Toyohashi, Toyama, and Aomori, memorials did not immediately appear. Most often, thirty and forty years later, the formation of regional remembrance societies, often taking the format of “[City] Society to Pass Down the Air Raids” (空襲を語り継ぐ会) preceded the building of memorials.

It is not clear what preceded each of these societies and memorials formation, but since Tokyo was the the largest and most severely incendiary bombed city with 100,000 dead, it is possible that the movement of remembrance germinated there. In the 1960s, a movement for remembering the air raids began to grow and take root. The movement even received support from the left-wing governor of Tokyo from 1967 to 1979, Minobe Ryokichi. The movement pushed to create a standalone museum and memorial about the incendiary raids, but were ultimately unsuccessful, largely due to the right-wing politics of the ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Today the memorial and museum to commemorate the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake incorporates the ashes of the dead and exhibits about the incendiary raid.

The memorials in Toyohashi, Toyama, and Aomori each tend to take a slightly different tone or invoke different motifs, but in each city there are very evident traces of the incendiary bombings. The list below is overwhelmingly incomplete, but represents only a fraction of the efforts at memorialization in each city.

This memorial, reading "peace" on the front side, was placed by the Toyohashi Air Raid Transmission Society on June 19th, 1995, 50 years after the incendiary raid.

"All who stand in front of this stone monument, at the same time as you mourn the victims, please harden your determination hand down [the story of] war and the air raid and to never repeat this calamity."

The "Image of an Angel" memorial, also known as the War Damage Recovery Memorial, was put up in 1974, almost 30 years after Toyama was incendiary bombed. It was placed by the Toyama Recovery Special Philanthropy Council (富山復興特別事業協議会).

"In Shōwa 20 (1945), the Pacific War inflicted a violent moment. On August 2nd, in the early morning, Toyama suffered the firebomb attack of over 70 planes. The area of the town was transformed into a scorched earth in an instant. Around 25,000 homes and 110,000 citizens were made victims. Around 8,000 people received light and heavy injuries, 2,275 people lost their precious life. At that moment, [the city] reached a state of annihilation. Amidst the miserable burned earth and despondency of hopelessness, Toyama citizens longed for peace. They burned with energy to recovery. The sound of the hammer rang loud, and the prefectural capital Toyama was rebuilt. In the little more than 20 years since then, the city resident's will and the concentration of their entire efforts have born fruit. The bold move of war damage reconstruction has arrived, and a modern city has appeared. Here, along with our hearts desire for eternal peace, we offer a devout prayer for the precious victims, we commemorate the great contributions of the city resident's hard work, and erect this war damage recovery memorial statue." 

This Aomori memorial was placed on July 28th, 2005, 60 years after the air raid. It was specifically placed by a group that came together for the 60th memorial, the Aomori War Damage and Air Raid 60th Anniversary Philanthropy Implementation Committee (青森戦災・空襲六〇周年事業実行委員会).

"At the end of the Second World War, in the middle of the night of July 28th, 1945, Toyama suffered an air raid from 62 American B-29 bombers, and from the dropping of 83,000 M-74 incendiary bombs, around 90 percent of the urban area was incinerated, and 1018 people's precious lives and fortunes were lost.

Moreover, that same year, on July 14th and 15th, and August 10th, from American carrier planes, the Seikan ferry, and prefectural harbor facilities, railroads, airport, and others, were attacked, and 173 lives were lost, for a total of 1,191 people being reported as victims, but more than half of the victims' names remain unknown.

60 years have passed since that piteous and cruel air raid and war damage, and because of the city residents' effort, risen from the ruins, Aomori has magnificently recovered.

However, today, [this memorial] is not a thing to halt the terrible spectacle, but as people's memories fade, and the generation that does not know of this increases, we are trying to weather that.

Since the air raid and war damages, it is exactly the 60th year, and from our innermost feelings we pray for the peace and happiness in the next life of those who became victims, and that Aomori is a war damaged city will be left in history, and because it is passed down, at the former site of the prefectural public hospital (now, the city municipal building), we erect this stone monument."

Indeed missing from at least these memorials is the context of war. As this project has shown, the United States' bombing campaign cannot be considered blameless in its calculations, but memorials can be myopic and conduct their own form of erasure as well. In this case, the Japan's half century long participation in empire and right-wing extremism is mostly missing from the memorial of these cities. What did they die for? Why were they bombed in the first place? Did they choose to be in that city in that factory, for example? Where did this terrible war come from? Ultimately, the elision or acknowledgement of these questions speaks more to the contemporary political and cultural climate during which they were answered than the historical realities of the moment.

Japan Air Raids,  www.japanairraids.org 

Karacas, Cary and David Fedman. “A Cartographic Fade to Black: Mapping the Destruction of Urban Japan during World War II.” Journal of Historical Geography 38 (306-328): 2012.

––––. “The Optics of Urban Ruination: Toward an Archaeological Approach to the Photography of the Japan Air Raids.” Journal of Urban History 40, no. 5 (959-984): 2014.

––––.  “Blackened Cities, Blackened Maps.” In Cartographic Japan 190-193. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Karacas, Cary. “Place, Public Memory, and the Tokyo Air Raids.” The Geographical Review. 100, no. 14. October 2010.

Lindqvist, Sven. A History of Bombing. New York: New Press, 2001.

Searle, Thomas R. “‘It Made a Lot of Sense to Kill Skilled Workers’: The Fire Bombing of Tokyo in March 1945.” The Journal of Military History 66, no. 1 (103-133): January 2002.

Selden, Mark. “A Forgotten Holocaust: US Bombing Strategy, the Destruction of Japanese Cities, and the American Way of War from the Pacific War to Iraq.” In Bombing Civilians: A Twentieth-Century History, edited by Yuki Tanaka and Marilyn B. Young. New York: The New Press, 2009.

––––. “Bombs Bursting in Air: State and Citizen Responses to the US Firebombing and Atomic Bombing of Japan.” The Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus. 12, no. 3 (1-20): January 2014.  https://apjjf.org/2014/12/3/Mark-Selden/4065/article.html 

Downes, Alexander B. Targeting Civilians in War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008.

Bess, Michael. Choices under Fire: Moral Dimensions of World War II. New York: AA Knopf, 2006.

Aomori shi yakusho. Aomori shishi: kyōiku hen. Vol 1. 14 Vols. Tokyo: Aomori yakusho, 1982.  https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015068034712 

Toyohashi shishi henshū iinkai. Toyohashi shishi. Vol 4. 8 Vols. Tokyo: Dainippon insatsu kabushiki gaisha, 1987.  https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3396665 

Toyama ken. Toyama kenshi, kindai tōkei zuhyō. Toyama: Toyama, 1983.  https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.l0093380145 

“Kokunai kakutoshi no sensai no jōkyō.” Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.  https://www.soumu.go.jp/main_sosiki/daijinkanbou/sensai/situation/state/index.html 

“Toyama dai kūshū.” Toyama City.  https://www.city.toyama.toyama.jp/etc/kuushuu/airraid/ 

Sōka Gakkai Seinenbu Hansen shuppan iinkai. Toyama no atsui sora: Toyama daikūshū no kiroku. Tokyo: Daisan Bunmeisha, 1977.

The Wayback Machine. “19/155 「Barbie to Post-Occupation no sedai」.  https://web.archive.org/web/20160526235311/http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/drmusou/58334951.html/ 

Sei Abe. “Toyota Uzuhiko ‘Toyohashi chihō kūshū nisshi’ wo yomu (1).” Chiiki seisaku gaku jānaru. 1, no. 1 (97-112): 2012.  http://id.nii.ac.jp/1082/00001364/ 

N.B. Sei Abe has published at least seven other readings of Toyota Uzuhiko’s diary, which have not been cited here for the sake of clutter. They can be read freely at the Aichi University Repository,  https://aichiu.repo.nii.ac.jp/  by searching 阿部聖.

War Department, US Strategic Bombing Survey. “Air Objective Folders by Target Area: Japan: Kofu, Shizuoka, Hamamatsu.”  https://catalog.archives.gov/id/77816374 

––––. “Air Objective Folders by Target Area: Japan: Toyama, Takayama, Maizuru, Kyoto and Matsue.”  https://catalog.archives.gov/id/77816202 

––––. “Air Objective Folders by Target Area: Japan: Aomori, Akita, Morioka and Kamaishi.”  https://catalog.archives.gov/id/77816039 

Headquarters Twentieth Air Force. “Tactical Mission Report: Nos. 297 through 302, Tsu, Aomori, Ichinomiya, Ujiyamada, Ogaki and Uwajima, 28-29 July 1945.”  https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/4002571 

––––. “Tactical Mission Report: Nos. 306 through 309, Hachioji, Toyama, Nagaoka and Mito 1-2 August 1945.”  https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/4002572 

––––. “Tactical Mission Report: Nos. 210 through 212, Toyohashi Fukuoka and Shizuoka 19-20 June 1945.”  https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/4002556 

Stanford Digital Repository. "1:50,000 chikeizu, Maps index."  https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/ph028ym3863 

Kokudo Chiriin. “Chizu, kūchū shashin etsuran sābisu.”  https://mapps.gsi.go.jp/maplibSearch.do#1 

Department of Defense. “Aerial Coverage at Osaka, Kobe, Imabari, Niihama.”  https://catalog.archives.gov/id/64509 

––––. “Air Coverage, Aircraft Plants.”  https://catalog.archives.gov/id/64514 

––––. “Physical Damage, Aerial Coverage Cities of Japan.”  https://catalog.archives.gov/id/64486 

––––. “Physical Damage, Aerial Coverage Cities of Japan.”  https://catalog.archives.gov/id/64488 

National Archives of Japan: Digital Archive. “Drawings of Air-raid damaged Sites of 1945.”  https://www.digital.archives.go.jp/DAS/pickup/view/category/categoryArchivesEn/0200000000/0203000000_2/00