The Facts and Figures Podcast

On the night of March 9th, 1945, B-29 bombers in the U.S. Air Force began dropping incendiary bombs on the city of Tokyo. This raid, known as "Operation Meetinghouse", is regarded as the single most destructive bombing raid in human history. In a three-hour period, 325 B-29s dropped 1600 tons of fire bombs, leaving an estimated 100.000 civilians dead, over 1 million homeless and 16 square miles (41 km2) of central Tokyo, destroyed.