Himeji Castle — The Miracle Survival in the 1945 Air Raids

Himeji Castle (姫路城), also known as Hakuro-jō or Shirasagi-jō (White Heron Castle) for its brilliant white plastered exterior, is a hilltop castle complex in Himeji, Hyōgo Prefecture. Built in its current form between 1601 and 1609 by Ikeda Terumasa, with origins dating to the 14th century, it is widely regarded as Japan's finest surviving example of original castle architecture. The castle was designated a National Treasure (国宝) in 1931 and became one of Japan's first UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1993.

The castle complex comprises 82 designated buildings (8 National Treasures and 74 Important Cultural Properties), including the magnificent five-story, six-floor main keep (大天守), whose 31.5-meter structure stands on a 14.85-meter stone base — approximately 46.4 meters in all. Its elaborate defensive systems — labyrinthine approach paths, concealed gun ports (狭間, sama), and stone-dropping windows — represent the pinnacle of Japanese military architecture.

The Air Raids on Himeji

Himeji endured two major air raids in 1945. The first, on June 22, 1945, targeted the Kawanishi Aircraft Company Himeji Works (川西航空機姫路製作所) northeast of Kyōguchi Station on the Bantan Line. Some 50 to 60 B-29 Superfortress bombers (52 according to U.S. mission records) attacked for about one hour beginning around 09:50, dropping roughly 350 tons of bombs. The raid killed 341 people and left 10,220 homeless.

The second and far more devastating attack came on the night of July 3-4, 1945. As part of a massive multi-city operation, 501 B-29s launched from three islands (Guam, Saipan, Tinian) to strike Tokushima, Takamatsu, Kōchi, and Himeji simultaneously. From 23:50 on July 3 to 01:29 on July 4, waves of B-29s dropped incendiary bombs across the entire Himeji urban area, using a point southeast of Himeji Castle as the central aiming reference within a 4,000-foot (approximately 1,200m) radius. The raid killed 173 people, destroyed over 10,300 buildings, left 45,182 homeless, and devastated approximately 63.3% of the built-up city area. Combined with the June 22 attack, U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey records indicate 76.7% of Himeji's urban area was destroyed.

The Miracle of the Main Keep

Despite standing at the very center of the bombing's target zone, Himeji Castle's main keep survived virtually unscathed — a fact that has been called the greatest miracle of Japan's wartime cultural heritage.

Several factors converged to produce this extraordinary outcome:

Radar misidentification: B-29 pilot Arthur Toombs later testified that he was entirely unaware of the castle's existence and had received no instructions regarding it. Radar operators reportedly interpreted the castle's large moat system as a body of water (lake or sea), and the northern boundary of the targeting map coincided with the castle's position, causing bombardiers to concentrate their drops south and east of the keep.

Civilian camouflage efforts: In anticipation of air raids, Himeji residents draped the main parts of the castle, including its iconic white walls, with camouflage netting dyed black (擬装網) to darken its appearance and reduce visibility from the air. L-shaped nails used to secure this netting are still visible on the western enclosure gallery (西の丸百間廊下) today — tangible evidence of the desperate effort to protect the White Heron.

The unexploded incendiary bomb: Despite these protective factors, an incendiary bomb (described in some accounts as a 100-pound M47 napalm bomb) directly struck the main keep, piercing a thin window shutter on the south side of the top floor and coming to rest on the sixth level. Had it detonated, the entirely wooden interior structure would almost certainly have been consumed by fire, just as Nagoya Castle had burned less than two months earlier. But the bomb's fuse mechanism failed — it was a dud.

On the morning of July 4, 1945, according to testimony he gave decades later, Suzuki Yoriyasu, an army officer responsible for unexploded ordnance, found the bomb lying on the top floor. He and his fellow soldiers reportedly carried the device down the keep's notoriously steep and narrow interior staircases in a dangerous relay operation, then detonated it safely outside the castle grounds. Suzuki testified about this act of extraordinary courage 60 years later.

Aftermath and Contrast with Nagoya Castle

When dawn broke on July 4, 1945, the people of Himeji reportedly wept at the sight of their castle still standing amid a landscape of utter devastation. The city around it had been reduced to ashes, but the White Heron rose from the smoke — battered, blackened, but intact.

This stands in poignant contrast to the fate of Nagoya Castle, another National Treasure, which was completely destroyed by incendiary bombing on May 14, 1945. At Nagoya, scaffolding erected to evacuate the golden shachihoko (roof ornaments) actually caught fire from incendiaries and spread flames throughout the castle, destroying the main keep, small keep, Honmaru Palace, and irreplaceable Kanō-school paintings. Nagoya Castle was rebuilt in concrete in 1959; Himeji Castle remains the authentic original.

Post-War Preservation

After the war, the Shōwa-era Grand Repair (昭和の大修理) was undertaken from 1956 to 1964, investing 250,000 man-days of labor and 550 million yen to restore and preserve the castle complex. A second major restoration, the Heisei-era repair, was completed in 2015, restoring the main keep's brilliant white plaster to its original luster.

Today Himeji Castle is Japan's most visited castle, receiving over 2 million visitors annually. Its survival is a testament to the convergence of chance, civilian determination, and individual heroism in preserving cultural heritage amid the destruction of total war.