Hamamatsu Air Raids and Naval Bombardment

Hamamatsu was an army aviation centre and a manufacturing city whose factories had been converted to war production, and it lay on the route used by US bombers entering Honshu. The government summary counts 27 attacks by bombs, incendiaries, strafing and naval gunfire. Attacks began in late 1944 and became frequent in 1945: a raid on 15 February killed about 145 to 150 people, and raids on 30 April and 19 May each killed several hundred.

The heaviest blow was the Hamamatsu Great Air Raid, which began at 00:10 on 18 June 1945. About 100 B-29s dropped some 65,000 incendiaries across the city, burning more than 15,000 houses and killing 1,717 people. On the night of 29 July an Allied bombardment group under Rear Admiral John F. Shafroth, built around the US battleships South Dakota, Indiana and Massachusetts and joined by HMS King George V, shelled the city's factories and railway facilities; King George V alone fired 265 14-inch rounds. Japanese records count about 2,000 shells and 170 deaths.

Figures vary between publications. The government summary, following a local record society, gives more than 3,000 dead, more than 5,000 injured and about 31,000 buildings destroyed or burned, with some 120,000 people affected; the city's population fell from 187,433 in 1944 to 81,437 in 1945. A memorial to the victims stands in Hamamatsu Castle Park and memorial services are held annually.