Saga Air Raid

The Saga raid was among the last B-29 missions against Japanese cities and took place only hours before the atomic attack on Hiroshima. Japanese Wikipedia gives the force as 65 B-29s of the 58th Bombardment Wing, attacking from about 23:30 on 5 August until about 01:00 on 6 August 1945 and dropping 459 tons of high-explosive and incendiary bombs; the inscription on the local memorial speaks of about 60 B-29s.

The target was the urban area of Saga City, but the bombs fell mainly south of the city centre rather than on it. Japanese Wikipedia explains that the lead aircraft changed its approach from the direction of the Shimabara Peninsula because of weak radar returns and that the blackout was thorough, so the force released over farming villages south of the city, and the centre of Saga largely escaped burning.

The worst-hit places were Kitakawasoe village (91 houses, 21 dead), the eastern part of present-day Morodomi (147 houses, 18 dead), Nishikawasoe village (20 houses, 7 dead), Kubota village (72 houses, 4 dead) and the Mizugae district of Saga City (about 150 houses). Seven houses were damaged in Higashiyoka village, where three young men were killed by an unexploded bomb three days after the raid. In all 61 people died and 443 houses were burned, making it the largest air raid in Saga Prefecture.

A monument inscribed 'B29 Kubaku Shodo' (scorched by B-29 bombing) in Saga City commemorates the raid and is listed among the memorial sites recorded by the MIC. The year the monument was erected and details of annual commemorations could not be confirmed from the sources consulted, so this entry is kept short.