In 1945 the Allies launched stronger attacks against Japan. Because of the great combat range of the B-29 bomber, the aeroplane known as the ‘flying fortress’, the Americans were able to carry out air raids every day on Japanese territory. The cities of Japan were very densely populated and many of the houses were made of wood. When the bombs fell these buildings burned like tinder. In the last few months of the Second World War, from March 1945, American aeroplanes dropped many tons of fire bombs on the principal Japanese cities. About 250000 people were killed in these air raids and houses over an area of more than 450 square kilometres were burned to the ground. On the night of 9 March 1945, American B-9 bombers from air bases in the Marianne Islands in the Pacific Ocean flew at almost 1,500 metres above Tokyo and devastated the Japanese capital with fire bombs. In that one night alone almost 38 square kilometres of the city was burned to the ground.
On 6 August 1945, a B-29 bomber dropped one solitary bomb on the city of Hiroshima. The bomb was light compared with some the huge bombs previously dropped on enemy cities, but this was an atomic bomb previously dropped on enemy cities, but this was an atomic bomb and its terrible explosive T.N.T. going off. The first atomic bomb destroyed 60 percent of Hiroshima and killed about 80,000 men, women and children. Three days later the city of Nagasaki was attacked by air with a second atomic bomb. The effects of these bombs were terrible. The two explosions brought an end to the world war which had raged for almost six years.
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