Wakayama Air Raid

The Wakayama air raid was the heaviest of more than ten raids on the city. B-29s left West Field on Tinian on the afternoon of 9 July 1945; Japanese radio reported about 250 aircraft heading north through the Kii Channel, and Wakayama city materials state that 108 B-29s attacked the city. Bombing began at 11:36 p.m.; Japanese Wikipedia puts the end at 1:48 a.m., while the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications record describes wave attacks lasting until about 2:30 a.m. Some 800.3 tons of incendiaries were dropped.

About 52.5 percent of the dense urban area was burned and 31,137 houses destroyed, leaving 113,548 people homeless. Japanese Wikipedia gives 1,208 dead, 1,560 seriously injured and 216 missing, and notes other figures of 1,101 and about 1,400 dead. Many people who had fled to the open ground of the former prefectural office site were killed by a fire whirl. The keep of Wakayama Castle, then a National Treasure, burned down; the Okaguchi Gate survived.

The castle keep was rebuilt in reinforced concrete in 1958. Memorial towers stand in Migiwa Park, on the former prefectural office site, and elsewhere in the city.