Fukuyama Air Raid

Fukuyama had been strafed by carrier fighters since June 1945, and leaflets dropped in late July listed it among cities to be bombed. US documents cite as reasons for the attack a Kawanishi Aircraft parts plant, the Army's 41st Infantry Regiment, the Teikoku dye works and a densely built residential area. The mission was planned as a daylight attack but was switched to night after an accident closed a runway at departure.

At about 22:25 on 8 August 1945 a flare burst over the city, and 91 B-29s of the 58th Bomb Wing came in from the sea to the south. For roughly an hour they dropped about 556 tons of incendiaries, first around the outskirts and then on the centre. The city hall, police station, railway station and schools burned, and the keep of Fukuyama Castle, then a designated National Treasure, collapsed in the flames. Some victims had stayed in their shelters for fear of an atomic bomb.

According to the city's records, 355 people were killed, 122 seriously and 742 slightly injured; 314 hectares, about 80% of the urban area, and 10,179 houses were burned, and 47,326 of the 58,745 residents were affected. A memorial service has been held every 8 August since 1954, and since 1972 it has taken place before the statue of a mother and two children in Fukuyama Central Park, modelled on a scene witnessed the morning after the raid. The castle keep was later rebuilt.