Sendai Air Raid

The Sendai air raid took place in the early hours of 10 July 1945. A force of 131 B-29s of the 58th Bombardment Wing, Twentieth Air Force, took off from West Field on Tinian on the afternoon of 9 July; 123 reached Sendai and bombed from about 3,000 metres in some 25 waves over roughly two hours, starting shortly after midnight.

Japanese sources (Japanese Wikipedia and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications war-damage record) give 12,961 incendiary and cluster bombs totalling 911.3 tons; the English Wikipedia article gives 10,961 bombs. About five square kilometres of the city centre burned, 11,933 houses were destroyed and 57,321 people were made homeless. The wartime city survey counted 987 dead, 260 seriously injured and 1,423 lightly injured; a later compilation of victims' names raised the death toll to 1,064 or more. The gate and corner turret of Sendai Castle and the Zuihoden mausoleum of Date Masamune were lost.

The raid is remembered at the Sendai City War Reconstruction Memorial Hall and at memorial services held around 10 July each year.