Operation Meetinghouse — Firebombing of Tokyo

In the single most destructive air raid in history, 279 B-29 Superfortresses dropped 1,665 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo's densely packed residential districts over the night of March 9–10, 1945. The resulting firestorm destroyed 16 square miles of the city, killed 80,000–100,000 civilians, and left approximately 1 million homeless. General Curtis LeMay's shift from high-altitude precision bombing to low-altitude incendiary raids against Japanese cities would eventually destroy 67 cities before the atomic bomb attacks. Tokyo was struck again in May 1945; five raids on the capital alone killed more civilians than the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.