Comes with a hand-signed C.O.A. and a full historical write-up

This rare, original, and museum-grade ‘RESTRICTED’ WWII XXI Bomber Command (20th Air Force) TARGET MAP was used during the USAAF long-range B-29 bombardment operations, against Japan until mid-July 1945. Titled “AOMORI AREA - HONSHU JAPAN” this TARGET MAP was used on aerial bombardment missions by USAF navigators and bombardiers for the most accurate target information and navigation to target. This map is dated MARCH 1945 and was used in XXI Bomber Command (20th Air Force) missions from March until Japan’s surrender in late 1945.

In order to properly plan missions to Japan, up-to-date reconnaissance photos of the proposed targets were needed. Other than information which was used during the Doolittle Raid in 1942, there was scant information about the locations of Japanese industry, especially the aircraft industry. On 1 November 1944, two days after arriving on Saipan, A 3d Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron F-13A Superfortress (photo reconnaissance-configured B-29) took off bound for Tokyo. The 3d PRS attached to the 73d Bombardment Wing. The aircraft flew over Tokyo at 32,000 feet for 35 minutes taking picture after picture. A few fighters made it up to the camera plane's altitude but did not attack. These photos, along with other intelligence gave the XXI Bomber Command the locations of the Japanese aircraft manufacturing plants and enabled mission planners to plan missions for the combat crews to attack. In honor of his mission, the aircraft was named "Tokyo Rose".

*What makes this specific edition of the target map very rare is the lower TRAGET legend key noting vital Japanese aerial targets and key military and industrial buildings/factories. This target map marks the exact locations of Japanese HEAVY BOMBER AIRFIELDS, FIGHTER AIRFIELDS, SEAPLANS STATIONS, NAVAL BASES, POW CAMPS, MANUFACTURING PLANTS, AIRCRAFT ASSEMBLY PLANTS, ETC.

This B-29, Japan mission target chart was brought back from a WWII veteran of the XXI Bomber Command (20th Air Force) who served as a B-29 Bombardier/Navigator in the Pacific Theater.

B-29 Operations in Japan:

The 73d Bombardment Wing was ordered to the Marianas rather than to the CBI Theater after its training with Second Air Force in Kansas. The first B-29 arrived at Isley Field, Saipan on 12 October 1944. By 22 November, over 100 B-29s were at Isley Field. The XXI Bomber Command was assigned the mission of destroying the aircraft industry of Japan in a series of high-altitude, daylight precision attacks. However, General Hansell was fully aware that his crews still lacked the necessary experience to carry out such missions.

In late October and early November 1944, a series of tactical raids were carried out as training exercises for the crews. On 27, 18 October B-29s attacked lightly defended Japanese installations on Truk. The submarine pens at Truk were the target, and four Superfortresses had to abort because of the usual engine problems, and combat formations were scrappy. The bombing results were mediocre, with only nine planes bombing the primary target and only a few bombs hitting it. The same two groups returned to Truk on 30 October with even fewer bombs landing on the target. The third try, on 2 November, was briefed as a radar bombing mission. Again the results were indifferent, with bombs scattered all over the general target area.

Aware that there was now a new threat, Japanese aircraft based on Iwo Jima staged a low-level raid on Isley Field on 2 November, damaging several B-29s on the ground. Retaliatory strikes were ordered against the two enemy airfields on Iwo Jima on 5 and 11 November with the 497th and 498th Bombardment Groups dispatched to bomb airfields there, but the results were once again poor. As in the XX Bomber Command Operation Matterhorn bombing campaign from India, the B-29s were in danger of being dissipated in tactical missions and even these were not all that successful.

In order to properly plan missions to Japan, up-to-date reconnaissance photos of the proposed targets were needed. Other than information which was used during the Doolittle Raid in 1942, there was scant information about the locations of Japanese industry, especially the aircraft industry. On 1 November 1944, two days after arriving on Saipan, A 3d Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron F-13A Superfortress (photo reconnaissance-configured B-29) took off bound for Tokyo. The 3d PRS attached to the 73d Bombardment Wing. The aircraft flew over Tokyo at 32,000 feet for 35 minutes taking picture after picture. A few fighters made it up to the camera plane's altitude but did not attack. These photos, along with other intelligence gave the XXI Bomber Command the locations of the Japanese aircraft manufacturing plants and enabled mission planners to plan missions for the combat crews to attack. In honor of his mission, the aircraft was named "Tokyo Rose".

The 3d Reconnaissance Squadron continued to fly single plane missions to Japan, taking high altitude pre-strike target planning photos and post-strike damage assessment photos. The losses incurred by the squadron in this type of activity were relatively light. Seldom were the Japanese able to get fighters up to 30,000 feet in time to intercept the photo ships.

All four groups of the 73d Wing were sent on their first mission to Japan on 24 November with 111 planes airborne. The target was the Nakajima Aircraft Engine Plant at Musashino in the arsenal sector of Tokyo. Also, for the first time, the B-29 encountered the Jet stream, which was a high-speed wind coming out of the west at speeds as high as 200 mph at precisely the altitudes at which the bombers were operating. This caused the bomber formations to be disrupted and made accurate bombing impossible. Because of the jet stream winds and bad weather, only 24 planes attacked the primary target; the majority dropped their bombs on the secondary target of the Tokyo Docks.

The group returned to Musashino on the 27th and closed out November with a raid on the Tokyo Industrial Area and Docks. The pace picked up the next month, with a return to Musashino on 3 December. Again, poor bombing results were achieved, with the high speed jet stream winds scattering the bomb drops and the aircraft in the formation, with the result of not much damage to the enemy being done. 8 December saw 82 planes attacking the Iwo Jima Air Fields (Motoyama Nos 1 and 2). Then it was back to attacking Japan, hitting Nagoya on 18 and 22 December. The airfields on Iwo Jima were revisited on 24 December and Tokyo the final target of the month on 27 December.

In addition to the wing strikes, December saw the initiation of another type of single plane mission: the weather strike. These were missions to Japan to collect weather data and drop nuisance bombs on Japanese cities. Again, these were high altitude missions with surprisingly low losses. The 3d PRS lost two planes in December. Out of the 75 weather strike missions flown in December, there were only three losses. During the same time period the 73rd Wing lost 21 planes to all causes on the six multi-plane raids by the wing as a whole.

The pace continued to quicken for the 73d in January. Musashino on 9 January cost six planes; Nagoya on 14 January, another five. One weather strike, out of 83 flown, was lost on 10 January, but help was on the way as new B-29s from the United States were arriving almost daily and new groups were arriving in the Marianas. The 313th Bombardment Wing, operating from Tinian, sent 44 planes to Pagan Island on 16 January, another 33 to Truk on 21 and 28 January to attack the Iwo Jima Air fields on 24 January. Thirty-three more returned to Iwo Jima on 29 January. The 313th's 504th and 505th groups joined in the attack on Kobe on 4 February, while on 9 February their sister groups, the 6th and 9th, made their initial training mission against the Moen Island Air Field on Truk.

United States Marines landed on Iwo Jima 19 February 1945 with a mission to seize the island and for Navy SeaBees to utilize the Japanese airfields to build emergency landing airfields for XXIst Bomber Command as well as fighter airfields for VII Fighter Command. On 25 March the Battle of Iwo Jima was declared over and the island secured, although mopping up continued until June. Construction Battalions extended and transformed the former Japanese fields to accommodate B-29s and the first AAF units moved in during the beginning of March.

On the night of 13–14 March, eight square miles of Osaka went up in flames. On 16–17 March, three square miles of Kobe were destroyed, and on 19–20 March in a return visit to Nagoya, three more square miles were destroyed. This destructive week had killed over 120,000 Japanese civilians at the cost of only 20 B-29s lost.

A month later, on 12 April, the 314th Bombardment Wing's remaining two groups, the 39th and 330th, joined in the attack on the Hodagaya Chemical Works in Koriyama. With the addition of the 39th and 330th, the XXI Bomber Command now had three wings, twelve groups, thirty-six squadrons of 15 B-29s each at their disposal. In May, the 58th Bombardment Wing completed its move from India to Tinian, adding four more groups to the XXI Bomber Command.

In April 1945, General LeMay gave new orders for more incendiary raids. This time, aircraft engine factories at Musashino and Nagoya were to be hit, but urban areas in Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Kawasaki, Kobe, and Yokohama were also to be attacked. On 7 April 153 B-29s struck the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries aircraft-engine complex at Nagoya, destroying about 90 percent of that facility. Five days later, 93 B-29s destroyed the Nakajima factory at Musashino. The Japanese aircraft engine industry essentially ceased to exist after this time. On 13 April 327 B-29s burned out eleven more square miles of Tokyo. Seven more B-29s were lost.

On 5 June, the B-29s attacked Kobe with such effectiveness that the city was crossed off the target list as not worth revisiting. By the end of the month, the six major cities on LeMay's list had all been effectively destroyed.

Late May saw the arrival of the first of the 315th Bombardment Wing, whose B-29B planes were equipped with the new AN/APQ-7 "Eagle" radar. The antenna for this radar was an 18-foot, wing-shaped unit mounted under the forward fuselage. The antenna swept a 60-degree arc along the flight path of the plane, and a higher frequency (X-band) signal gave a much-improved radarscope picture. The 315th had been trained for low-altitude, nighttime pathfinder missions. Between 26 June and 10 August, they carried out a series of fifteen strikes against oil production facilities which essentially shut down the Japanese oil industry. The B-29Bs were also stripped of much defensive gunnery, adding capacity for additional incendiary or high-explosive bombs.

By now, the B-29 raids were essentially unopposed by Japanese fighters. In late June, B-29 crews felt sufficiently confident that they began to drop leaflets warning the population of forthcoming attacks, followed three days later by a raid in which the specified urban area was devastated by mass carpet bombing. By the end of June, the civilian population began to show signs of panic, and the Imperial Cabinet first began to consider negotiating an end to the war. However, at that time, the Japanese military was adamant about continuing on to the bitter end.

In June 1945, the XX and XXI Bombardment Commands were grouped under the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific (USASTAF), under the command of General Carl A. Spaatz. The history of XXI Bomber Command terminated on 16 July 1945. On that date the command was redesignated Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron, Twentieth Air Force. This redesignation brought to an end the XXI Bomber Command as a separate establishment, as it was absorbed into the internal organizational structure of Twentieth Air Force and was placed under the command of USASTAF.

Groups

• 19th Bombardment Group, 14 December 1944 – 27 January 1945

• 39th Bombardment Group, 1 April 1944 – c. 18 February 1945 (attached to 17th Bombardment Operational Training Wing, c. 15 April 1944 – 8 January 1945)

• 501st Bombardment Group, 14 April – 19 June 1945 (attached to 315th Bombardment Wing after 15 April 1945)

Squadrons

• 3d Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron: attached December 1944 – 16 July 1945

• 41st Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron: attached 13 June – 16 July 1945