Hitachi Air Raids and Naval Bombardment

Hitachi was a munitions-industry city dominated by the Hitachi Ltd. works and the Hitachi Mine, and it was struck three times within six weeks, which the city describes as unparalleled among provincial cities. On the morning of 10 June 1945 more than 100 B-29s attacked the Hitachi Works coastal plant and its surroundings with one-ton bombs; Japanese counts give 508 bombs and US records 806. About 90% of the plant's buildings were destroyed, and the city records 886 employees and civilians killed.

On the night of 17-18 July a US Third Fleet bombardment unit under Rear Admiral Oscar C. Badger, with the battleships Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Alabama and the British battleship King George V, shelled the Yamate and Taga works, the cable works and the mine's refinery in rain and darkness. The city counts 870 16-inch shells from 16 ships and 436 deaths; US records give 1,238 16-inch shells from the American battleships, 267 14-inch shells from King George V and 292 6-inch shells from the cruisers. Industrial damage was limited, but residential districts were badly hit.

On the night of 19 July, 127 B-29s dropped about 13,900 incendiaries over roughly an hour and a half on the old city of Hitachi and the neighbouring towns of Toyoura, Taga and Kuji. In the old city 78.2% of the densely built-up area was destroyed. The Torin Monument, erected in 1957 in Narusawa Cemetery, commemorates the victims of the three attacks, and the city holds peace exhibitions each summer.