Matsuyama Air Raid

Matsuyama is the prefectural capital of Ehime and the political and commercial centre of north-western Shikoku. A naval air base lay on its western outskirts, Ehime Prefecture had heavy industry and munitions plants, and the city was close to the Bungo Channel route regularly used by American aircraft, so it was attacked repeatedly late in the war. Matsuyama had been attacked several times from March 1945, including a B-29 raid on the naval air base on 4 May that killed 69 military personnel and 7 civilians. The great raid came late on 26 July 1945.

The B-29 formation flew north-east up the Bungo Channel, passed Cape Sada and reached the sky west of the city; according to the MIC account the first bombs fell on Shinmachi at about 23:30 (Japanese Wikipedia gives the raid as lasting from 23:08 to 01:18). 128 aircraft of the 73rd Bombardment Wing, XXI Bomber Command, dropped 896 tons of incendiaries over about two hours, centred on Shiroyama (the castle hill), setting fires first around the edge of the built-up area so that the city became a sea of flame within a few hours.

The city centre was reduced to ashes apart from parts of the Johoku and Torimachi districts. 14,300 households were burned out (55% of the total), 62,200 people were affected (about 53% of the population), 251 were killed (117 male, 134 female) and 8 were missing, with countless injured. Important buildings including the prefectural office, city hall, courthouse, library and banks nevertheless escaped the fire and later served as bases for reconstruction. Other cities in Ehime suffered as well: Imabari, Uwajima, Niihama and Saijo were all raided during 1945, and a raid on Imabari in early August killed 454 people and destroyed about 80% of its centre.

The city commemorates the victims at annual memorial services. Details such as the location of the memorial and the date of the service could not be confirmed further from the sources consulted.