The US had been bombing Japan regularly, focusing on military targets, many of which were in Tokyo. But this had not been very effective. The bombers flew at a great height (close to 30,000 feet) and bombs got carried off target by strong winds. General Curtis LeMay changed that.

LeMay decided that bombers should fly at lower heights, 5000-9000 feet, to rule out the wind. Attacks would be at night, on cities and would use incendiary bombs, designed to set things on fire, instead of explosives, because Japanese structures were mainly made of wood.

After a few trials, LeMay decided to firebomb Tokyo. He ordered bombers to remove most of their own guns and load up on napalm bombs. More than 300 bombers would fly, with 1665 tonnes of incendiaries, including half a million cylinders of napalm and white phosphorous.

The aircraft reached Tokyo close to midnight on March 9. The first planes dropped fire bombs to form the shape of an X, marking the area to be bombed. For roughly the next 150 minutes, bomb after bomb was dropped on the Japanese capital, which became an inferno.

Tokyo’s night time defences could not handle an attack of this scale. As explosive gel flowed out, people and places caught fire. The air was thick with smoke. Many people jumped into pools of water but as the temperature soared to almost 1000 C, they were roasted alive.

Even American pilots and crew in the bombers started throwing up, unable to stand the stench of smoke and burning flesh that entered the planes. On the ground, buildings burned, windows melted, hundreds choked, or were killed in stampedes as people ran helter-skelter in panic.

Although the raid was over by 3 am on March 10, Tokyo burned for days. 40 square kilometres of the capital was destroyed by fire and a quarter of all the buildings in the city were burnt. More than 1,00,000 people died that night - more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The firebombing of Tokyo is called Operation Meetinghouse and remains the most destructive in history. Although many questioned its ethics, there is no doubt that it played a huge role in breaking Japanese morale, making many realise that the war was lost!