On this day in 1945, the US Air Force dropped 1,500 tons of incendiary bombs on Toyama, Japan, creating a “sea of fire”, destroying 95% of the city, burning thousands of people alive, and leaving 165,000 people homeless.

In early 1945, the US Air Force began “incendiary area bombing”, essentially firebombing entire Japanese cities. War crimes were the US strategy. The goal was complete destruction of Japanese cities, specifically targeting residential areas.

At first, major Japanese cities were targeted, but after they were destroyed the US began targeting smaller cities like Toyama.

On the night of Aug 1, 1945, one hundred and seventy-three B-29 bombers fire bombed Toyama. The maps distributed to the bombing crews led directly to the residential city center.

By dawn, Toyama's schools, shrines, hospitals, and neighborhoods lay in ruins. Left unscathed were the war-related factories outside the city.

In total, the 1945 US bombing campaign on Japan dropped 54,000 tons of incendiary bombs, killing nearly 200,000 ppl and burning 76 sq. miles of Japanese cities to the ground, nearly a quarter of Japan’s countrywide housing was destroyed.