Kawasaki Air Raid

Kawasaki, lying between Tokyo and Yokohama at the heart of the Keihin industrial zone, was first bombed in the Doolittle Raid of 18 April 1942, when 34 people were killed. Sustained raids began in 1944-45; on 4 April 1945 about 50 B-29s killed 194 people.

The largest attack came on 15 April 1945, when more than 200 B-29s dropped about 1,110 tons of incendiaries and bombs. The whole urban area and the factories concentrated along the Nambu Line were devastated. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) page records 33,361 houses and 287 factories totally or partly destroyed and more than 100,000 people affected in this raid.

Figures for Kawasaki's total air-raid losses differ by source: the city's reconstruction history gives 768 dead and 154,426 affected (44.4% of the population); the Japanese government's overall damage report gives 1,001 dead; the US Strategic Bombing Survey gives 1,520 dead and 8,759 injured. The Kawasaki Peace Museum in Nakahara Ward today documents the raids.