Magnesium Bombs Into

Loading 500-Pound Clusters of Magnesium Bombs Into a B-24 of the Eighth Air Force, somewhere in England. 

The war in the Pacific was marked by the most spectacular and effective use of the aerial incendiary bomb. After March 1945, General LeMay s all-out incendiary attacks against the vulnerable Japanese cities brought to a culmination the recognition which the incendiary bomb had gradually been winning throughout the war. It was air power which played a very important part in Japan s decision to capitulate, and it was the incendiary bomb which helped to make air power such a decisive force. 

The first B-29 s left Guam at 173 j on 9 March, and by 2020 the entire attacking force was airborne. Although the planes encountered some bad weather on the way to Tokyo, they identified the coast Initial point and target without difficulty. The first bombs landed on Tokyo at 0015 on the following morning. It took but thirty minutes for the 

Rpt on the Incendiary Attacks Against Japanese Urban Industrial Areas (hereafter cited as Twentieth AF Special Rpt on Incendiary Attacks) n.d., pp. f-6. 

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Aircraft dropped more 4-pound magnesium bombs than all other incendiary bombs put together. Almost thirty million fell on Europe, and almost ten million on Japan, causing damage that ran into astronomical figures. 

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