B-29 Raids on the Okayama Aircraft Plant, Formosa
岡山航空廠空襲（台湾・高雄州岡山）
In mid-October 1944, during the Formosa Air Battle, B-29s flying from Chengdu bombed the Japanese naval aircraft depot and airfield at Okayama (today's Gangshan, Kaohsiung). The 14 October mission, with 103 aircraft bombing, was the Twentieth Air Force's first 100-plane B-29 strike.
History
Okayama, north of Takao (Kaohsiung), was the site of a major Japanese naval air base and the 61st Naval Air Depot, a large aircraft assembly and repair facility referred to in US records as the Okayama aircraft plant. In October 1944, ahead of the Leyte landings, US carrier task forces struck airfields across Taiwan from 12 October in what became the Formosa Air Battle, and the China-based XX Bomber Command was ordered to support the operation.
On 14 October 1944, 103 B-29s from the Chengdu area bombed the Okayama aircraft plant, with about a dozen more attacking other targets; it was the first Twentieth Air Force mission on which more than 100 B-29s bombed. On 16 October more than 40 B-29s from Chengdu bombed the plant again. The raids left the depot heavily damaged.
The former naval aviation officers' dormitories nearby, later the air force dependants' village known as Xingcun, survived the bombing with damage. The complex was registered as a cultural landscape by Kaohsiung City in 2017 and is being restored as a heritage site.
Related sites
Sources
- Okayama Airfield - American missions against OkayamaWebsitePacific Wrecks
- Formosa Air BattleWebsiteWikipedia