1943 CE
Tokyo Air Raid Shelter Drill
About this moment
Tokyo was bombed by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) in a series of air raids on Japan, primarily launched during the closing campaigns of the Pacific Theatre of World War II in 1944–1945, prior to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The strikes conducted by the USAAF on the night of 9–10 March 1945, codenamed Operation Meetinghouse, constitute the single most destructive aerial bombing raid in human history. Sixteen square miles (41 km2; 10,000 acres) of central Tokyo was destroyed, leaving an estimated 100,000 civilians dead and over one million homeless.