Twilight in Tokyo

At his headquarters on a Guam hilltop, Major General Curtis Emerson LeMay added up the results of three months' massive B-29 attacks on Tokyo. Tough-minded, realistic Curt LeMay claimed nothing of which he could not be sure. The things of which he could be sure:

P:51.3 sq.mi. of Tokyo (46% of the built-up area) had been burned or bombed to ashes.

P:4,500,000 people who had lived in the area were now homeless.

P:50 Superforts had been lost--one per sq.mi. of devastation,

P:"We have destroyed all the target areas we have set out to destroy."

No doubt Tokyo would be bombed again, because it still contained inviting, if less concentrated, targets. And the same fate was in store for other Japanese cities. As LeMay spoke, his staff and the Japs were both computing the results of the B-29s' first smash at Yokohama--in which 450 planes dropped 3,200 tons of incendiaries. The 21st Bomber Command said 6.9 sq.mi. of the great seaport city was burned out; the Japs said 60,000 homes were destroyed. Next on the B-29s' list was industrial Kobe, which caught another 3,000-ton load of U.S. fire bombs.

Yearling's Growth. The yearling Twentieth Air Force was feeling its oats. It had virtually withdrawn from its first, hand-hewn bases in China, and shifted planes from there to Tinian. It had another new wing in the Marianas, operating from a great new field on Guam. The weight of its blows had been stepped up 100% in two months, and would soon be further increased.

Enemy opposition to the Superfort attacks, while still stout, has begun to show signs of weakening. Flak remains heavy, but not uniformly so; fighter opposition on most recent assaults has been light. But in the drive to knock out Japan's industry, the B-29s will now face a new enemy: weather. Between June and September, eastern Japan's rainiest season, the air will be warm, moist and thick with clouds. Inevitably, more bombing will have to be done by instruments and will be correspondingly less accurate, but there will be no lightening of the bomb loads.

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