The Day 400 B-29s Appeared Over Yokohama — And What Tokyo Did Next

517 B-29 Superfortresses took off for Yokohama, Japan's second-largest port, on the morning of 29 May 1945, and 454 of them dropped 2,570 tons of fire bombs on it in about an hour. For the first time, 101 P-51 Mustangs from Iwo Jima flew all the way in with a fire raid, and a third of the city burned. The same day, a new admiral took his seat on the six-man council running Japan's war. Battlewatch Documentaries plays just as well as audio, and it is all on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2nnWOCN... The raid is seen from the cockpits of the 15th and 21st Fighter Groups and from the city below. Then the story moves up Tokyo Bay to the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War: the 6 June vote to fight to the end, the June survey that found the people losing confidence in their leaders, the Emperor's own summons asking for a plan to close the war and an envoy to Moscow, the long wait for the Soviet answer, and MacArthur riding into Yokohama to make it his headquarters. Curtis LeMay's gamble to send the B-29s over Tokyo low and at night on 9 March, Black Friday on 1 June, when the Iwo Jima Mustangs flew into a weather front on the way to Osaka, and Operation Starvation, the mines that closed Japan's harbors and the Shimonoseki Strait, complete it. B-29 crews, Iwo Jima Mustang pilots and the ground crews who kept them flying: if one of them was family, leave his name and group in the comments. Chapters: 0:00 The Morning Yokohama Burned 8:58 The Plan 15:39 The Summons 27:28 The Night LeMay Took the Guns Out 29:44 The Ledger 42:54 The Night of March Ninth 55:06 Black Friday: The Mustangs That Flew Into the Storm 56:55 Six Hundred Miles of Water 1:05:52 Into the Front 1:21:49 The Mines in the Harbor 1:23:38 How a Mine Thinks 1:34:20 The Other Side of the Water Sources: Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate (eds.), The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. V, Ch. 20, Urban Area Attacks (1953): https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/... U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Japan's Struggle to End the War (1946): https://history.navy.mil/research/lib... Samuel J. Cox, Naval History and Heritage Command, H-Gram 053-2: The Surrender of Japan (2020): https://www.history.navy.mil/about-us... City of Yokohama, Could you tell me about the Yokohama Air Raid? (2021): https://en.city.yokohama.lg.jp/faq/ku... Edward Wiley, The Uncertain Summer of 1945, NSA Cryptologic Quarterly: https://media.defense.gov/2021/Jun/29... Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate (eds.), The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. V, Ch. 18, Precision Bombardment Campaign (1953): https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/... Tinker Air Force Base Public Affairs, Retired bombers recollect Tokyo mission: https://www.tinker.af.mil/News/Articl... 506th Fighter Group Association, June 1 - Black Friday (mission records and pilot accounts): https://506thfightergroup.org/mission... Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate (eds.), The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. V, Ch. 19, Iwo Jima (1953): https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/... Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate (eds.), The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. V, Ch. 21, The All-Out B-29 Attack (1953): https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/... U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Interrogation Nav No. 5, Capt. Kyuzo Tamura and Cdr. Binzo Sugita (1945): https://ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/USSB... John S. Chilstrom, Mines Away! The Significance of U.S. Army Air Forces Minelaying in World War II, Air University Press (1993): https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA425... For history and teaching, the film and photographs here are drawn from the archives and the words of 1945 are kept as they were. A few moments with no surviving film may be shown as reconstructions, labelled on screen. Nothing in the video is meant to glorify war or to offend any person, nation or group. #Yokohama FOOTAGE AND IMAGE SOURCES Archival film, most screen time first: Aerial Coverage, Cities and Effect of Aerial Mines (342-USAF-11058): https://catalog.archives.gov/id/64506 Physical Damage, Aerial Coverage, Cities of Japan (342-USAF-11040): https://catalog.archives.gov/id/64487 The Last Bomb (342-USAF-18486): https://catalog.archives.gov/id/65631 Mariana Thunderbolts (342-USAF-18026): https://catalog.archives.gov/id/65566 Physical Damage, Kobe, Japan (342-USAF-11048): https://catalog.archives.gov/id/64495 B-29 Bombings (111-ADC-10499): https://catalog.archives.gov/id/24260