Atomic Bomb Vs. Tokyo Fire Bomb Damage

The damage induced by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is put into perspective. The WWII damage to the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is compared to the damage inflected by the firebombing raids over Japan. The video will also look at the number of B-29 that would need to be dispatched, carrying conventional bombs, to match the damage of the atomic bombs. Quite surprising results.

[mlovmo]

This is a great subject to cover, and one that the average person doesn't really understand. The atomic bombings in August '45 should be seen in the context of what was already happening, ie. the total destruction of Japanese cities.

[Turnip]

"Toyama is likely the most destroyed city in the history of warfare" is absolutely chilling. Impossible to imagine the devastation only through documents and photos. Thank you for the video as always

[andrewhammel]

I remember watching "to tell the truth" when I was a gradeschooler in the Sixties. I recall seeing how a lady on the panel (my parents age of the WWII generation no less) thought that Japan had been unscathed by American bombing prior to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki, except for the Doolittle Raids. Even as a child I knew that "most of Japan's big cities had been half flattened by American bombing" BEFORE they even got around to dropping the two nukes". Am still amazed at the ignorance of Americans, even of the generation alive at that time, about that.

[Snarkbar]

Seeing a Japanese city listed as "41.9% destroyed" and then seeing my home town listed next to it in parentheses really hits hard. War really is hell.

[Perfusionist]

Good report! Yes, this stuff will NEVER be quoted when the media reports on the "morality" of the US using atomic weapons in Japan. People just don't understand what Japan was already going through, the conventional air attacks (plus the attacks the USN carrier forces were doing) The A-Bombs simply increased the efficiency of the USAAF to prosecute an ongoing campaign. The naval blockade and USAAF mining operations would have led to mass starvation in 1946. Japan was effectively beaten, but the fanatics at the top were determined to take their nation down in some fantastic last stand. I hope this channel will sometime examine the actions and effects of the ISAAF sea mine campaign.

[alanm.]

My dad was a co-pilot on a B29 that was involved in the fire bombings, flying out of Saipan. He didn't talk about WWII a lot, but occasionaally would say a little.
He told me how the tactics changed. That General LeMay looked at the high altitude bombing raids' poor results and came up with the idea of more precise low level raids, mostly at night. The B29 had been specifically designed and constructed for high altitude, so this was controversial (by the way, B29 development was the most expensive single program of the war costing approx. 2X what the Manhattan project to develop the A-bombs did).
Keep in mind too that combined British and US forces had conducted fire bombing raids of Dresden Germany over the course of three days, a month before the similar raids in Japan. Bombing in Germany mostly concentrated on strategic targets... bases, factories and transportation hubs for war materials. There's some dispute of tgis when it cones to Dresden. It had seen few raids up to that point and didn't have a lot of strategic installations.
It was different in Japan. There the war effort was highly scattered, in small workshops throughout the cities.
I know dad had mixed feelings about the raids. In the Tokyo raid they flew a 1st pass to drop inciniaries, half their bomb load, and then circled back to drop high explosive to disrupt any efforts to fight the fires. They could only imagine what it was like on the ground.
But at the same time it had been over three years of bloody conflict in the Pacific to arrive at the point they were truly bringing the war to the Japanese homeland. They had seen some of the toll taken. There was a large graveyard near their base on Saipan. At least one of my dad's air crew was killed in action during the high altitude raids.
In spite of the intense fire bombings, Japan appeared to still be preparing to resist an invasion. It was estimated a conventional attack on Japan would extend the war for 5 to 10 years and millions more would die. That was why the difficult decision was made to drop the atomic bombs.
Even after the Hiroshima A-bomb Japan refused to surrender. It was only then the 2nd bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Even after that there was a contingent within the Japanese military that wanted to continue the fight and attempted a coup. Fortunately they were unsuccessful.
Dad wasn't involved in the A-bombs. Those were done by a different B29 bomber group flying from nearby Tinian island.

[longlakeshore]

For a larger perspective consider that Japan's invasion of China, SE Asia, Indonesia & The Philippines killed at least 25 million people (20 million in China alone) while less than 2 million died in Japan under US bombs. Japan dealt out more than ten times the death they suffered at home.

[David-icby]

One of your most important videos yet. The story it really tells—from the Japanese surrender to this very day—is the /psychological/ effect of those nuclear weapons. Though at the time they carried less punch than the combined effects of conventional bombing, people intuited that a line had been crossed into WMDs.

[ryanslauderdale]

This is a classic example of Batman having to break his rules and become evil to stop his worst enemy, the Joker. There was no other way to stop the Japanese other than breaking whatever will they had left to make war. Their leaders would've sacrificed every last honorable man, lovely woman and beautiful child rather than accept defeat. But regardless of the methods used, accepting defeat was a better solution than extinction.

[Token_Civilian]

Great facts and data. A lot of stuff in there I hadn't heard anywhere else, and from period primary sources. Love these vids.

[SatelliteYL]

Your channel is just incredible, your access to rare documents and your lack of sensationalism make for a perfect base to build these kind of videos on. They’re too technical and required too much context and background knowledge for the broad masses but that’s fine because there are already a ton of channels doing low level content for them

[earlthepearl]

Very well done. While I have always been aware of both the fire bombing campaign and the A-bomb drops, I have never thought of comparing the two on “percent destruction” basis like this. It is very thought provoking. Another great job! Thank you!

[EstorilEm]

This didn’t surprise me at all - people always tell me how horrific the atomic bombs were, “the worst day of WWII” death-wise, etc etc. I just roll my eyes - it’s difficult to comprehend (even with videos like these) the complete and utter destruction the B-29s brought to Japan.

The surrender was certainly brought on by the atomic bombs, however this result was only possible with japans knowledge that their entire country and population was indeed already vanishing before their very eyes, and with this new weapon, it wouldn’t take much to finish the job completely.

Another interesting fact is that the B-29 program cost more than the actual Manhattan project. It must have seemed absolutely ridiculous to put that much money into one aircraft at the time - but considering it’s impact with both conventional and atomic bombs, it could be argued THAT was the actual weapon which ended WWII.

[TallDude]

That's really interesting. I would have thought the atomic bombs would be far more destructive than a couple hundred conventional bomb loads. I think it's like why the news reports when an airliner crashes, but doesn't report individual car accidents - the amount of people that die in cars adds up to a lot more people, but the airline crash is hundreds of people at once.

[oscodains]

Great video, short, to the point, and using only primary source documents. Thanks for your research.

Definitely leaves one to wonder based on effectiveness of fire bombing if the atomic bomb was needed. When two large raids may have had the same result. It also reveals just how horrible war is.

Also leaves me to question my education. I have never heard of Toyama but have heard of Dresden.

[nsu]

“War is cruelty. There’s no use trying to reform it, the crueler it is the sooner it will be over.”
William Tecumseh Sherman

“War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want.” General William T. Sherman

[JK-rvtp]

I recall a surprising 50 year study that was completed in the late 90s that tracked atomic survivors that received a large radiation dose, but that was below the radiation poisoning level, and who went on with their lives, for long term cancer rates. They found the cancer rates were only negligibly higher than the general population.

[Sacto]

Why was the fire bombing campaign considered? In Martin Caidin's book _A Torch to the Enemy_, US intelligence cited the following, based on observations by US diplomats before the war:

1. Japanese cities at the time were built mostly of wooden structures, and there was still not sufficient number of firefighters and location of firebreaks to at least slow down the fires spreading.
2. Much of Japanese war material production occurred in small shops located in the center of cities, not in dedicated factories located away from cities.

That's why the first firebombing raid on Tokyo on the night of March 9-10, 1945 was so devastating. 16 square miles of the city burnt to the ground from a massive flame confligation firestorm, and while it officially killed just over 82, 000 Tokyoites, some say the real death toll may well exceed 120, 000. The initial raids on Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and Kobe ended up causing massive losses to Japanese war materiel production capacity, and the Japanese military never really recovered from these setbacks.

[johnwatson]

A recent popular book was critical of the firebombing and oddly suggested they should have kept trying high altitude conventional bombing (which of course was abandoned as couldn’t hit anything due to wind conditions).

[Noname-xrql]

Comparing to NukeMap and maps of The fire bombing on Tokyo,
The destruction of the fire bombing on Tokyo almost compares to a 150 KT Nuclear bomb blast radius which is x10 bigger than Hiroshima (Ignoring the light blast zone which isn't gonna do much) and the raid's overall destruction (including Nagoya and Yokohama) is bigger than most modern nuclear bombs.
Proving conventional bombings still to be as dangerous as nuclear weapons (especially with modern technology)