Nagaoka Air Raid

Nagaoka, a commercial and industrial city of 74,508 people in July 1945, had been hit by a single bomb on 20 July that killed four people. On the night of 1 August the air-raid alarm sounded at 22:26 and flares were dropped; pathfinders marked the approach and exit ends of the target with M47 incendiaries before the main force released M69 cluster incendiaries.

The attack by 125 B-29s, identified in Japanese Wikipedia as belonging to the 313th Bombardment Wing from Tinian, lasted from 22:30 until 00:10 on 2 August. About 924 tons, or some 163,000 incendiary bomblets, were dropped. Roughly 80% of the built-up centre burned and 11,986 houses were destroyed; many victims died in crude shelters. The birthplace of Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku was among the buildings lost, and the site is now Yamamoto Memorial Park.

The number of confirmed dead has been revised upward as research continued and stands at 1,488 (earlier publications give 1,484 or 1,486). The Nagaoka War Damage Museum preserves the record of the raid, and the Nagaoka fireworks festival, held on 1-3 August, traces its post-war origin to a reconstruction festival begun the year after the raid.