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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
From late November 1944, the U.S. Air Force began aerial bombing of Japan's main islands. By the time the war ended on 15 August 1945, the United States had dropped a total of 160,800 tons of conventional and incendiary bombs, as well as two atomic bombs. More than ninety percent of these bombs were dropped by B-29 bombers during the last five months of the Asia-Pacific War. In the end, almost 100 cities and more than 300 towns and villages throughout Japan were targeted, causing more than 1 million casualties including 560,000 deaths. It is said that seventy percent of those killed were women and children. The great destruction and carnage from this intense indiscriminate bombing campaign imposed severe physical as well as psychological damage on Japan's society and people.