Remains of Osaka after a night of American terror bombing, Japan, WW2, 1945

English: Osaka City Air Raid after the bombing which occurred on March 13, 1945. On March 13, 1945, for about three and a half hours, indiscriminate bombing of residential areas in Osaka Prefecture was carried out by the US military. A total of 1,733 tons of incendiary bombs were dropped from 274 B-29s, burning down the city center, resulting in 3,987 dead and 678 missing. You can see Nankai Namba Station on the far left, Matsuzakaya Osaka store (now Takashimaya Higashi Annex) in front on the right, and Osaka Kabukiza in the center.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Osaka_after_the_1945_air_raid.JPG

People often talk of the atomic bombings with horror, but the incendiary terror bombings were much more unjustifiable, honestly.

It’s very telling that when we (the USA) were doing weapons testing before the deployment of mass incendiaries in Japan, the mock-up targets we used were designed to resemble the (flammable, paper) civilian housing of Japan rather than industrial targets.

A crime that shakes the soul.