At the end of the Pacific War, the city of Yokohama was destroyed by indiscriminate carpet bombing with incendiary bombs by the U.S. Army in the daytime of May 29, 1945. Burned corpses charred by the incendiary bombs were strewn about. The burnt corpses were raked up and covered with tin sheets to house them. A large number of Yokohama citizens stood around and searched for their relatives.
The bombing of Yokohama was an indiscriminate bombing of central Yokohama by the U.S. military during the daytime hours of May 29, 1945, at the end of World War II. approximately 517 B-29 bombers and 101 P-51 fighters attacked the city with incendiary bombs, killing approximately 14,157 Yokohama residents. About 14,157 Yokohama citizens were killed. Approximately 2,570 tons of incendiary bombs indiscriminately bombed and P-51s gunned down the old city of Yokohama, destroying it. About 79,017 houses were destroyed, and about 42% of the city was burned down.
Allied forces carried out many air raids on Japan during World War II, destroying urban areas on a massive and indiscriminate scale, killing about 333,000 people and leaving about 473,000 Japanese civilians injured or missing. The strategic bombing of the Pacific began in June 1944 and continued until the end of the war on August 15, 1945. It was greatly expanded around November 1944 when air bases in the Marianas became available. Curtis E. LeMay of the U.S. Army Air Forces decided in early March 1945 to switch from daytime precision bombing of selected targets to nighttime incendiary attacks on Japanese cities. Bombers switched to dropping low-altitude nighttime incendiary bombs on urban areas, many of which were small workshops and homes where Japanese weapons were manufactured. Japan's military defenses were unable to stop Allied air raids, and its fighter planes and anti-aircraft guns were inadequate and had difficulty reaching the altitudes of the frequently operated B-29 bombers.
Japan's urban areas, with their many wooden buildings, were vulnerable to incendiary attacks, and lacked firefighting training and equipment, and air-raid shelters for civilians were scarce, resulting in serious casualties. Urban areas were densely populated and most buildings were constructed of highly combustible materials such as paper and wood. Industrial and military facilities in urban areas were surrounded by densely populated residential areas. The production of napalm bombs used by the U.S. military for flamethrowers and incendiaries increased from about 0.23 kt in 1943 to about 3.6 kt in 1944. Most of the napalm bombs were transferred from nine factories in the US to bomb assembly plants. Indiscriminate bombing with incendiary bombs was a war crime of deviation from precision bombing of targets, and the U.S. military justified the war by propagating the need and sacrifice for a quick end to the war.
