Shizuoka Air Raid

Shizuoka, the prefectural capital, had a population of about 212,000 in 1945 and lay on the Tokaido Main Line. The city was attacked repeatedly from late 1944: Japanese Wikipedia counts 26 raids by the end of the war, while English Wikipedia mentions smaller raids in March, April, May and on 7 June before the great fire raid. From June 1945 XXI Bomber Command, having burned out the major cities, turned its incendiary campaign against medium-sized and smaller cities, of which Shizuoka was one.

The Shizuoka air raid was a night incendiary attack carried out from late on 19 June into the early hours of 20 June 1945 by 137 B-29s of the 314th Bombardment Wing (another account has 137 dispatched and 123 bombing). Attacking in two streams from east and west, they dropped approximately 13,211 incendiary bombs on the old city area (today's Aoi and Suruga wards).

The death toll is given as 1,952 (Japanese Wikipedia says 'more than 1,952'). Figures for the injured differ: Japanese Wikipedia gives about 5,000, while English Wikipedia gives 12,000. English Wikipedia records 26,891 houses destroyed and, citing the post-war US Strategic Bombing Survey, 66.1 percent of the city destroyed; Japanese Wikipedia speaks of more than 30,000 houses. Two B-29s collided over the city during the raid, killing 23 American airmen.

A memorial tower to the city's war victims stands on Mount Shizuhata, together with a monument to the B-29 crews. According to US Air Force accounts from Yokota Air Base, Ito Fukumatsu, a resident who survived the raid, tended two airmen found alive in the wreckage and, after they died, buried the crews alongside the civilian dead. A joint Japanese-American memorial service for both the civilian victims and the B-29 crews is held on the mountain each June; it has long been hosted by the Shizuoka physician Sugano Hiroya and is attended by personnel from Yokota and the Japan Air Self-Defense Force. The city's annual Abe River fireworks festival also began as a memorial event.