Comes with a hand-signed C.O.A.

Size: 10 x 10 inches

The Bombing of Sendai in World War II on July 10, 1945, was part of the strategic bombing campaign waged by the United States against the civilian population and military targets during the Japan home islands campaign in the closing stages of World War II.

This incredibly rare and museum-grade WWII artifact is a 21st Bomber Command TYPE ONE aerial raid mission photograph taken from the open bombay of a USAAF 58th Bombardment Wing B-29 Superfortress during the U.S. Firebombing Campaign against mainland Japan in June-July of 1945.

The USAAF 58th Bombardment Wing and its squadrons fell under Major General Curtis LeMay’s 21st Bomber Command and participated in numerous bombing raid missions and incendiary attacks over the Japanese home islands with these missions continuing until just days before the dropping of the second atomic bomb.

This aerial raid mission photograph was taken on July 10th, 1945 as more than 123 B-29 Superfortresses of the 21st Bomber Command firebombed Sendai, Japan. Intelligence mission photographs like these were reviewed by Curtis E. LeMay (Commander of the 21st Bomber Command) as it was LeMay’s direct order for the greater use of incendiary bombs coupled with a lowering of the altitude at which crews dropped their payloads.

MISSION DETAILS:

On July 9, 1945, 131 B-29 bombers from the USAAF 58th Bombardment Wing launched from Tinian island in the Marianas. Several aircraft turned back due to mechanical problems, and 123 aircraft arrived over the target at an altitude of 10,000 feet at just after midnight in the early morning of July 10, 1945.

The bombers split into 25 groups of between two and five aircraft each to carpet bomb the densely packed residential center of the city with 10,961 incendiary bombs. The resultant firestorm destroyed most of the historic center of city.

A five square kilometer portion of the center of the city was destroyed, with 11,933 residences burned (approximately 23% of the city). Also lost in the bombing were a number of cultural treasures, include the structures of Sendai Castle, and the Zuihoden mausoleum of Date Masamune. On the other hand, the large Sendai Arsenal, and the structures of the IJA 2nd Division were untouched by the air raid.

According to a survey report compiled by the Defense Division of Sendai City Hall during July, there were 987 dead, 50 missing, 260 seriously injured and 1423 mildly injured. Victim lists were compiled in two books written in 1973 and 1995. The second calculated that 1064 people were killed by the air raid, and 335 more were thought to have been killed, including unidentified and missing persons. These numbers include people killed in all raids on Sendai during the war.

During the air raid, the only American loss was a B-29 destroyed in a crash on the runway at Tinian (its crew escaped without injury). A year after the war, the United States Army Air Forces's Strategic Bombing Survey (Pacific War) reported that 21.9 percent of the city had been destroyed.

Sendai experienced a number of minor air raids afterwards. On July 12, a single B-29 dropped 36 incendiary bombs on a Sendai suburb. On July 13, July 25, August 9 and August 10, the city and airport were bombed and strafed by United States Navy carrier-based aircraft.

58th Bombardment Wing:

1944 - The Wing's four Bomb Groups, the 40th, 444th, 462nd and 468th, were stationed in eastern India in 1944. On its earliest missions, the 58th Bomb Wing transported fuel and bombs from its bases in India over the treacherous Himalaya Mountains to staging bases in the Chengtu Valley in unoccupied China. "Flying the Hump" was so dangerous that it was counted as a combat mission. On June 5, 1944, the 58th flew its first combat mission, a raid against the railroad yards at Bangkok, Thailand. The mission originated from the rear bases in India. Ten days later 47 B-29s took off from the staging bases in China on their first nighttime attack on the Japanese homeland, striking the massive steelworks at Yawata. The B-29 had proven its long-range capabilities and the 58th Bomb Wing quickly developed a reputation as one of the elite bombing units of WWII.

1945 - In 1945, from Tinian, the Wing flew combat and reconnaissance missions throughout Southeast Asia and finally into the heartof the Japanese empire, striking at the core of the enemy's industrial cities, aircraft factories, steel mills, electronic facilities, ball bearing manufacturers, and merchant shipping centers. Through the efforts of the mighty 58th Bomb Wing the Japanese Empire was defeated by August 1945.