The Night of the Black Snow

Yesterday Japan commemorated a gigantic fire-bombing of Tokyo in World War Two.  The Japanese call it "the night of the black snow."

In one night 80 years ago more than 105,000 Japanese civilians were burned to death by the American Army Airforce. The residential streets of Tokyo filled with heaps of charred bodies. Survivors watched entire families burn. 

The Tokyo fire, created with incendiary bombs, has been largely ignored in favor of the two atomic bombings that followed. 

The Tokyo raid remains the most destructive bombing event in history. 334 B-29s dropped 1,665 tons of incendiaries, including a half-million cylinders of napalm and white phosphorus. Most of this hit civilian neighborhoods with wooden homes. The area also contained deliberately dispersed Japanese factories. They were targets. Civilian deaths were ignored. 

 

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