On this day in 1945, the United States Army Air Forces launches an unprecedented air raid on Tokyo, Japan. To date, it remains the single deadliest bombing raid in history—worse even than the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki later that year.
Unfortunately, the Japanese government still refused to surrender.
The U.S. 20th Air Force faced serious challenges in the early part of 1945. They’d been conducting high-level, precision bombing attacks over Japan, but nothing was going right. Bombers were coming in high, at 30,000 feet, then watching as their bombs got torn off course by high winds. Jet streams were not understood as they are today—and the frequent cloud cover in Japan simply made things worse.
The accuracy rate of American bombers was sitting at an abysmal 10 percent.
Something had to be done, and Major General Curtis LeMay knew it. He would no longer try (and fail) to take out high value targets with precision bombing. Instead, he would simply burn the city around them.
The first of LeMay’s incendiary raids began on the night of March 9–10 when more than 300 B-29 bombers took off toward Tokyo. They’d been stripped of non-essentials to make room for more bombs. The B-29s would fly in at 7,000 feet, dropping as many bombs as they could.
The scene was set for a firestorm, although the intensity of that firestorm surely surprised everyone.
The story continues here:
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On this day in 1943, a B-17 Flying Fortress completes its 25th combat mission without losing a member of its crew. Memphis Belle would return to the United States, embark on a war bond tour, and become one of the most famous bombers to emerge from World War II.
She was nearly sold for scrap metal after the war, but Memphis mayor Walter Chandler saved her for $350. Today, she’s been refurbished and sits at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.
Memphis Belle’s survival was no small feat.
The story continues here: https://www.taraross.com/post/tdih-memphis-belle
On this day in 1868, votes are taken in President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment trial. Thirty-five Senators voted to convict, one vote shy of the 36 votes then needed to remove him from office.
That trial has since been labeled a “political circus” and “a contest for power.” Regardless, Johnson would survive the attempt against him.
Americans were then recovering from a brutal Civil War that had left hundreds of thousands dead or wounded. Johnson wasn’t supposed to be the President that got them through this trying period. He was President only because Abraham Lincoln had been killed just one month into his second term.
Needless to say, Johnson struggled.
The story continues here: https://www.taraross.com/post/tdih-johnson-impeached
On this day in 1918, the first official U.S. airmail flight departs from Washington, D.C. Such a flight is ordinary today, but in the early 20th century, the success of such an undertaking was far from certain.
“When airmail began in 1918,” a USPS publication explains, “airplanes were still a fairly new invention. Pilots flew in open cockpits in all kinds of weather . . . . [They] followed landmarks on the ground; in fog they flew blind. Unpredictable weather, unreliable equipment, and inexperience led to frequent crashes . . . .”
Some credit Otto Praeger, Second Assistant Postmaster General, with pushing airmail into existence. Praeger was all enthusiasm for the mail: He knew nothing about planes or their limitations.
The story continues here: https://www.taraross.com/post/tdih-airmail-service
