Sasebo Air Raid (June 28–29, 1945)

Sasebo had been a naval port city since a Naval District was established there in 1889; in wartime it held the Sasebo Naval Arsenal and many other military installations and had already been attacked several times from spring 1945. The raid of 28 June was by far the largest, one of the night incendiary attacks on provincial cities that the Twentieth Air Force began in mid-June.

The Sasebo Air Raid began at about 23:50 on June 28, 1945 and lasted until around 02:00 on June 29. It was the rainy season and raining that night, and many citizens did not expect an attack. The attackers were B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers of the USAAF 73rd Bombardment Wing, flying from their Marianas bases some 1,500 miles away: Japanese Wikipedia, the MIC page and the US mission listing (Mission 235) all give 141 aircraft, while an account based on the US after-action report gives 145. Tonnage also differs: the US report gives 1,077.1 tons of incendiary bombs dropped over approximately one hour across an area 2.5 miles long and half a mile wide, whereas Japanese sources speak of more than 1,000 tons, or an estimated 1,200 tons, dropped in about two hours.

According to the US report the primary targets were the Sasebo Naval Arsenal, military barracks, dockyards, and associated military facilities; Japanese Wikipedia states that the aiming point was near Miyaji-cho in the city and that it was the city centre that burned, the naval base itself being almost undamaged. The US assessment was that 0.97 square miles, 48% of the city area, was destroyed. Japanese figures give 12,037 houses affected (35% of all houses in the city) and 60,734 people affected (27% of the population), in line with the 60,000 left homeless in the English account. Death tolls vary: Japanese Wikipedia gives 1,242, mostly civilians, while the English account previously used here says at least 1,231 people were killed.

During the raid children and teachers from Miyamura National School, on the southern outskirts, sheltered inside the Mukyudo Cave, a shelter that pupils and teachers had dug by hand from 1943, and all survived; the number is given as about 500 or approximately 600. The cave has been open to the public since 2002. Each 29 June sirens sound across Sasebo for a minute's silence. A memorial tower was erected in Chuo Park by the bereaved families' association in 1977, a monument inscribed with the names of the dead was unveiled on 31 August 2016, and the Sasebo Air Raid Museum reopened with enlarged displays in October 2020. A 'Tower of Remembrance' erected in 1952 commemorates 34 telephone and telegraph workers who died at their posts.