Air Raids on Kure Naval Base

Kure in Hiroshima Prefecture was one of the Imperial Japanese Navy's main bases and shipbuilding centres. On 19 March 1945 about 350 aircraft of Task Force 58 under Vice Admiral Mitscher attacked the port. By July the surviving heavy ships, immobilised by lack of fuel, were moored around Kure and nearby islands as floating anti-aircraft batteries.

Between 24 and 28 July 1945 Task Force 38 of Admiral Halsey's Third Fleet struck repeatedly; US carrier aircraft flew 1,747 sorties on 24 July alone. The British Pacific Fleet (Task Force 37) operated alongside but was directed against airfields and the Osaka area rather than Kure itself. The carrier Amagi capsized, the battleships Haruna, Ise and Hyuga settled on the bottom, and the cruisers Tone, Aoba and Oyodo, the old armoured cruisers Iwate and Izumo and other vessels were sunk or wrecked.

Japanese Wikipedia gives about 780 Japanese naval personnel killed and about 2,000 wounded; Allied losses in the July attacks were 133 aircraft and 102 aircrew. The city of Kure itself was separately firebombed by B-29s on the night of 1-2 July 1945. The naval history of the port is presented today at the Kure Maritime Museum (Yamato Museum).