Wakayama Air Raid Site

The Wakayama Air Raid (和歌山大空襲) refers to the catastrophic firebombing of Wakayama City on the night of July 9-10, 1945, the largest and most destructive of multiple air raids on the city during World War II. It stands as one of the deadliest single raids on a smaller Japanese city during the war.

On the evening of July 9, 1945, a large force of B-29 Superfortress bombers departed from Tinian West Field in the Mariana Islands. At around 23:00, Japanese radio reported "approximately 250 enemy bombers advancing northward through the Kii Channel in five groups." At 23:36, illumination flares were dropped over the Minato river mouth in the western part of the city, and the bombing commenced. Approximately 108 B-29s directly targeted Wakayama City, dropping 800.3 tons of incendiary bombs that ignited a massive firestorm across the urban area.

The destruction was staggering: approximately 52.5% of the densely built-up area was incinerated, with 31,137 houses burned. The human toll was devastating — 1,208 people were killed (the figure reported to the Home Ministry on July 16; other counts range from 1,101 to about 1,400), 1,560 seriously injured, approximately 3,000 lightly injured, and 216 went missing. Over 113,000 residents were displaced and left homeless.

Among the most significant cultural losses was the complete destruction of Wakayama Castle (和歌山城). The castle's main keep (tenshu), which had been reconstructed in 1850 after an earlier lightning fire and designated as a National Treasure in 1935, was burned to the ground along with most castle structures. Only the Okaguchi Gate and a few minor buildings survived. The castle was reconstructed in 1958 using reinforced concrete, with strong support from the citizens of Wakayama.

Today, memorial towers to the air raid victims stand at Migiwa Park (汀公園) — the former prefectural office site, where 748 evacuees died that night — and near Jōhoku Bridge, with a Jizō statue near Naka Bridge. The Wakayama City Museum holds annual exhibitions documenting the raid, and the reconstructed Wakayama Castle serves as both a museum and a symbol of the city's resilience and recovery from wartime devastation.