Our second straight on Tokyo. These were the largest fires yet. You could see them for 230 miles. There were plenty of lights but we were not picked up. Take off: 18:10, Bombs Away: 12:57, Land: 07:40.
— Joe Caner Swann
This return trip to the Tokyo Urban Area involved 498 aircraft. It was also a nighttime raid with planes over the target from 11:30 pm of May 25 until 2:15 am of May 26. Bombers were assigned altitudes between 8,000 and 22,000 feet.
Each plane averaged 13,500 lbs. for a total of over 3,300 tons of incendiaries dropped on the target. The total damage between this and the previous mission was 18.6 square miles of area burned out.
Antiaircraft fire was heavy at times, and accounted for three B-29s destroyed and eighty-nine more damaged. Fighter opposition consisted of 60 planes which made 99 attacks which were known to have brought down another B-29 and damaged ten more. Eleven more aircraft were damaged from a combination of flack and enemy fighters. The gunners claimed nineteen enemy fighters destroyed with four more damaged.
A total of 26 planes did not return from this mission.
Additional Resources
- Read the complete journal kept by the Star Duster's right gunner, Joe Caner Swann.
- Resume of 20th Air Force Missions, (see book information on the books resources page).
- Mission resumes are also available on the Twentieth Air Force Association web site. This site is built with frames. To view the mission resumes click the "Missions" link in the top menu on the site's home page. This was mission 183.
Mission List
- Truk (October 30, 1944)
- Iwo Jima (November 8, 1944)
- Bonin Island (November 20, 1944)
- Tokyo (December 3, 1944)
- Tokyo (December 19, 1944)
- Pagan (December 30, 1944)
- Nagoya (January 3, 1945)
- Nagoya (January 14, 1945)
- Scheduled -- Grounded due to mechanical problems (January 19, 1945)
- Nagoya (January 23, 1945)
- Scheduled -- Grounded due to mechanical problems (January 27, 1945)
- Search (January 31, 1945)
- Weather Strike to Kobe (February 6, 1945)
- Incomplete (February 15, 1945)
- Tokyo (February 25, 1945)
- Tokyo (March 4, 1945)
- Tokyo (March 9, 1945)
- Nogoya (March 11, 1945)
- Kobe (March 16, 1945)
- Nagoya (March 18, 1945)
- Tachiarai (March 27, 1945)
- Dumbo (March 31, 1945)
- Tachikawa (April 3, 1945)
- Dumbo (April 7, 1945)
- Dumbo (April 13, 1945)
- Tachiarai (April 17, 1945)
- Tachikawa (April 24, 1945)
- Mayazaki (April 29, 1945)
- Fighter Escort to Tokyo (May 7, 1945)
- Tokayama (May 10, 1945)
- Nagoya (May 14, 1945)
- Nagoya (May 16, 1945)
- Tokyo (May 23, 1945)
- Tokyo (May 25, 1945)
- Yokahama (May 29, 1945)
- Fighter Escort to Osaka (June 1, 1945)
- Incomplete (June 7, 1945)
- Hitachi (June 10, 1945)
