ps: Thank you for the great "Han surname Liu" reward heaven 100 vertical and horizontal coins, thank you ^_^, because the Spring Festival is approaching, there are more and more chores at home, which affects the n_n chayexschayexs. I'm sorry to be there, readers, but I made a mistake in the previous heaven. The planned bombing of Tokyo was to take off late at night and fly to Tokyo around the early morning to carry out the bombing, rather than arriving during the day, so that even if there were nearly 1,000 P-47 "Thunderbolt" fighters around to escort them, it would be difficult to resist the crazy counterattack of the little devil Zero. After all, the maximum flight altitude of the B-24 double-tail bomber is only more than 8,500 meters, which seriously limits its maneuverability and safety. So this chapter is changed to the first day of the new year, the bomber group departed late at night and flew high above Tokyo around the early morning.

At 3:15 a.m. on January 1, 1944, a salvo of lights from the Daejeon airfield in North Korea illuminated the front line airfield inside and out.

On the runway, the first B-24 bomber flew into the sky from Daejeon Airport as a green flare streaked across the sky. Twenty-five seconds later, the second plane took off, and the subsequent planes took off one after the other with the deafening sound of engines. By about 3:40 a.m., B-24 bombers taking off from other front-line airfields in North Korea joined the huge air procession, and the rumble of engines resounded in the sea and air. Nearly 1,000 bombers formed a formation and flew north, escorted by the same nearly 1,000 P-47 "Thunderbolt" fighters. At this time, the night sky is clear, and a bright moon is still hanging high in the sky and slowly setting in the west.

Near 4:20 a.m., the coastline of the Niigata area appeared on the radar screen of the B-24 bomber pilot.

"Attention crews, attention crews, we have reached the skies over Niigata, we have reached the skies over Niigata. We will fly over Tokyo in 20 minutes, and the sky is expected to light up in 30 minutes, so please wear protective gear. The voice of the air commander Tiger echoed in the cockpits of each crew.

“yes，sir！”

"Understood!"

The aircrews on each plane began to put on anti-aircraft artillery armor and put on steel helmets.

"Remember, if your plane is shot down and forced to land, you must let the Japanese military capture as soon as possible, otherwise the ordinary Japanese citizens below will kill you in the most cruel way. May God bless us, Amen! Air Commander Tiger continued.

"Amen!"

"Amen!"

Every religious aircrew member unconsciously began to gesture on his chest, hoping that God Almighty would protect him from his safety during the bombing.

At 4:18, the B-24 bomber flew over Tokyo, and the sky was in a phase where it seemed to be light but not bright. However, the terrifying "boom" caused by the attack group of 2,000 planes immediately made the Woko discover the intentions of the Star-Spangled Banner.

In an instant, the piercing sirens sounded in the streets and alleys of Tokyo, and beams of white searchlight beams began to shine into the air, and the anti-aircraft artillery, which was not dense, began to fire, and the fiery red bullet chains rose from below.

However, because at this time, most of the Japanese people in Tokyo were still asleep, and although the damage caused to Tokyo by the Stars and Stripes bombers in the past was serious, it was still within a tolerable range, and the fire caused by it was finally extinguished by the fire brigade and citizens in the city, so many residents were not very afraid of the sound of the siren, so they did not plan to get up immediately and flee to a safe area such as an air-raid shelter, but either got up and wrapped themselves in quilts, glanced out the window, and then continued to go back to sleep to recover their strength. Ensure the efficiency of work after arriving at the factory today; Or get up and get dressed and look at the sky, not knowing what to confirm. Only a handful of the most vigilant people quickly got up, put on their clothes haphazardly, and ran out of the house to the bomb shelter or into the air raid cellar they had dug up.

Steel mill worker Yuki Endo.

"Evendosan (father's meaning)?" Yuki Endo's eldest son asked in confusion.

"お父样 (the meaning of the child's father)?" His wife, Yuko Yoshikawa, also asked with a worried face.

"Quick, get up! Yuko, you dress the children, I'll go open the lid of the air-raid cellar on the first floor! "The head of the family, who worked in the steel mill for a long time, was well-informed and vigilant, Yuki Endo got up and dressed, and ordered loudly.

"Hey!"

At 4:22 a.m., the four navigators leading the bomber group flew rapidly over the target at a speed of more than 200 miles per hour, and before the anti-aircraft gunners in and around Tokyo could turn their guns, the B-24 bombers rumbled away, throwing down four strings of incendiary bombs behind them. A few seconds later, four dragons, each three or four miles long, suddenly soared into the city of Tokyo like four bolts of lightning, and stood out against the pitch-black ground. Immediately afterwards, 10 more navigators flew in and dropped incendiary bombs on the four fire dragons, like a goddess scattering flowers, and the "heavenly fire" descended.

In an instant, the searchlights on the ground in Tokyo frantically shone at the aircraft group, and the anti-aircraft gunners of the devils seemed to have red eyes, and the artillery fire doubled in intensity. But one after another, the B-24 bombers flew by at high speed at low altitudes, and the shells rarely hit.

"The target is obvious, and I see a large area on fire to defend it. The anti-aircraft guns were average, not too violent, the enemy fighters took off in limited numbers, and resistance was weak. Ball, the navigator pilot, who had been nervous, finally easily sent a wireless call from the walkie-talkie.

“yes！ God bless ~~" Air Commander Tiger breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the report.

More than ten seconds later, the main bombers of the brigade followed one after another, and the latest napalm incendiary bombs provided by the Yanhuanghong Party were overwhelmingly dropped, and they were like bunches of bananas under the light of the fire, which were extremely beautiful. It's just that this beauty carries the invitation of death, and when these cluster incendiary bombs reach 100 feet above the ground, the built-in M47 rockets will burst, and then shoot out 2-foot-long incendiary rods, which will explode as soon as they touch something, scattering sticky fire in all directions.

Years later, a French journalist on a safe high ground far from the target area wrote in his memoirs: "Bright flashes of light illuminated the night sky, the Christmas tree bloomed in the middle of the night, and then a large string of fireworks fell with a boo-booing sound." Only 15 minutes after the start of the raids, the fire had spread to wooden houses all over the city. ”

In 1943, Tokyo had a population of several million and an urban area of more than 200 square miles, but there were only more than 8,000 trained firefighters, 2,000 auxiliary personnel, and 1,117 fire engines. Fire hoses are also pitifully short, and fire trucks are limited to two to three hours of petrol due to fuel shortages.

In addition, the pressure of the main water pipes in the entire city of Tokyo is based on electric pumps, so once the circuit is cut off, the pumps cannot be used. Therefore, if the city of Tokyo is ignited on a large scale, the fire will inevitably become uncontrollable. In addition, this is a low-altitude surprise bombing that uses the night to give alms, and there is no need to form a tight formation like high-altitude precision bombing, and the weight of fuel saved by not having to fly to the limit altitude of more than 8,500 meters, so that each plane can carry more than 50% more bombs than usual, that is, more than 3 tons (the maximum load capacity is 6 tons), so that nearly 1,000 B-24s can carry more than 3,000 tons of cluster burst incendiary bombs, which is enough to cover a large area of Tokyo.

In order to achieve the greatest results after the New Year, Admiral Arnold of the Stars and Stripes Air Force selected Shitamachi, a commercial suburb of Tokyo, as the target for the first fire attack test in the final revision plan approved by the "Tokyo Trial". Because the area is extremely densely populated, most of the Japanese residents live in slatted houses along the east bank of the Numasumi River. Some of the adjoining two-story buildings are less than 3 feet apart, so fire attacks are definitely the best way to get the most out of the battle.

"Ah~~~~"

"Help!"

"Who's going to help me, please!"

"Doto-san (the child's cry for his father)!"

"お父样~~~"

"Fire truck, call a fire truck!"

"Water, water is there!"

"Fetch water, fetch water to control the fire!"

As expected, just half an hour after the start of the air raids, the raging flames were raging uncontrollably, and the strong winds of 30 knots on January 1, 1944, abandoned the pirates, greatly contributing to the spread of the fire. Huge fireballs leap from one building to another with starry shards. On the streets, the firefighters and police could not control the flames that were scurrying around, nor could they stop the fleeing crowd frightened by the flames. Everyone in the entire city of Tokyo is running for their lives, scurrying like rats, thunderous explosions overhead, snakes scurrying in the streets, and screams of terror everywhere in the firelight.

Gradually, the flames turned orange to white, and the smoke rose into the air, and the ground was reflected orange by the firelight. The flames devoured everything that could be burned, the metal melted, the tiles turned into black powder in the fire, and many of the people hiding in the bomb shelters were roasted alive. People went crazy and jumped into it desperately when they saw water, and the pools in parks, the cisterns of hospitals, were densely packed with people who wanted to flee for their lives, but the heat turned these pools into cauldrons, and people were cooked in hundreds, thousands.

Two hours later, the wind had died down at dawn, but the whole of Tokyo fell into a deathly silence.

At this time, the exit of Yuki's cellar shook slightly, and as the stone baffle was opened, the five members of Yuki Endo's family staggered out of it. Although because Yuki Endo was a steel mill worker, he could take advantage of his work to bring back some iron tools that were in demand, which made his house's air-raid cellar far deeper than that of his neighbors. However, the oxygen caused by the napalm burned out, causing the Yuki Endo family to begin to show signs of suffocation deep underground, and finally they were almost stunned, so they had to leave the shelter of the air-raid cellar that provided them with a sense of security.

"Oh, Amaterasu is above!" Standing next to the entrance to the air-raid cellar, Yuki Endo looked around and shivered in disbelief and horror.

I saw a burning ruins all around, many charred and humanoid corpses, scattered next to the remains of the masonry foundation of the house, and the smell of barbecue in the air was disgusting and disgusting, and a smell of doomsday came to the face.

Looking out from the hillside far away from downtown Tokyo, you can see through the morning light that a large area in the center of Tokyo has disappeared, with only a few telephone poles and iron shelves standing alone. There was still smoke coming from some of the poles. The fleeing crowd returned, walking apathically across the small bridge over the Sumida River, the river turning black, and countless charred corpses floating on the surface of the river, unable to distinguish between men and women.

According to later statistics, the fire burned 400,000 buildings in Tokyo and left 1.7 million people homeless.

Twenty-one hours later, more than 900 B-24 bombers attacked Nagoya at night, turning the city's aircraft factory into flames. At dawn on January 3, Osaka, the second largest city of the Japanese Invaders with a population of 3 million, was also bombed by 800 B-24 planes, and more than 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs fell from the sky, and about 20.7 square kilometers of urban area were burned within three hours. On January 4, 1,900 tons of incendiary bombs descended on Kobe, turning it into a fire, and Kobe's shipbuilding center was reduced to nothing in the flames.

In less than a week, more than 9 million people fled to the countryside in defiance of the police and gendarmerie sirens, and the absenteeism rate of factory workers had fallen to 51 per cent by 10 January 1944: oil refining industry production had fallen by 73 per cent; aircraft engine production fell by 60%; Aircraft skeleton production fell by 55%; the production of electronic equipment fell by 59%; More than 300 major military factories were either blown up or severely damaged, and the entire wartime economy of the Japanese was at the point of exhaustion, and the whole country was on the verge of collapse!