Tsuchizaki Air Raid (Bombing of Akita)

Tsuchizaki was the main port of Akita Prefecture on the Sea of Japan and was incorporated into Akita City in 1941. The nearby Yabase field was then the largest oil field in Japan proper, and the Nippon Oil Akita Refinery (now the ENEOS Akita oil terminal) stood beside the harbour. The 315th Bombardment Wing, whose B-29s carried a new radar, specialised in night attacks on Japanese oil installations; the Akita refinery had remained undamaged until the last days of the war and so became a target.

The raid began late on 14 August 1945 and ended in the early hours of the 15th: according to the Japanese and English Wikipedia articles the B-29s arrived at about 22:30 and bombing continued until about 03:30, some four to five hours. Sources give the number of aircraft variously as 130, 132 or 134 (this site has used 132). They dropped 12,047 bombs (7,360 of 100 kg and 4,687 of 50 kg; 953.9 tons in the earlier text). The refinery, described as the largest still operating in Japan, was completely destroyed, and port facilities and neighbouring residential streets were also hit.

The death toll differs between sources. More than 250 dead and about 200 seriously injured is the figure most often quoted; Japanese Wikipedia also records counts of 92 confirmed and 184, and a 2026 Akita Sakigake Shimpo report speaks of at least 127 victims, with local efforts to identify the dead still continuing. The Emperor had already decided on 14 August to accept the Potsdam Declaration, and the surrender rescript was broadcast at noon on the 15th, a few hours after the bombers left. The mission was among the longest flown by B-29s from the Marianas and, together with the raids on Kumagaya, Isesaki and Odawara the same night, is commonly described as the last air raid of the Pacific War.

A statue of a girl praying for peace, erected in 1979, stands near the Selion tower in Tsuchizaki, and a Jizo statue beheaded by a bomb fragment survives at Unsho-in temple. The Tsuchizaki Minato History Museum, opened in 2018, displays beams and columns relocated from a bombed refinery building. A citizens' group holds a memorial and peace ceremony for the victims every 14 August.