Naval Bombardment of Muroran

On 14 July 1945 carrier aircraft of the US Third Fleet attacked Hokkaido and northern Honshu; at Muroran they sank escort vessels and merchant ships in the harbour and killed 12 people. The following morning a bombardment group under Rear Admiral Oscar C. Badger, built around the battleships Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin with two light cruisers and a destroyer screen, appeared about 28 km off Muroran.

From 09:36 to about 10:30 the battleships fired 860 16-inch shells at the Japan Steel Works Muroran plant and the Wanishi iron works of Nippon Seitetsu. Shells also fell on the surrounding Gozensui, Misaki, Wanishi and Nakajima districts, including company housing, destroying civilian air-raid shelters together with their occupants.

Japanese Wikipedia gives 485 dead, of whom 439 were non-combatants. The US Strategic Bombing Survey, as quoted by the MIC, reported 427 dead and 109 injured, and another Japanese tabulation gives 436 civilian dead. A memorial to the victims of the air raid and bombardment stands in the grounds of Muroran Hachimangu shrine, and a monument erected in 1959 in Nakajima-honcho records 192 victims in that neighbourhood; people visit both every 15 July.