Today is Monday, March 9th, 2020.

On this day in 1945, the United States executed the single deadliest

airstrike in history on the city of Tokyo, Japan. Welcome to today in True Crime, a parcast original.

Today we're covering the American Fire Bombing of Tokyo during World War II.

To the Americans it was dubbed Operation Meeting House.

To the Japanese, it will forever be remembered as the Great Tokyo Air Raid.

Now let's go back to that night, March 9, 1945. 5.

At 5.35 p.m. local time, American bombers took off from the tiny Pacific Island of Saipan.

They encountered some mild turbulence en route to Tokyo, but otherwise conditions and

visibility were clear, even though the planes were flying at low altitude around 6,000 feet, they were high enough to avoid the

extremely gusty winds on the ground.

This was the first low-altitude bombing raid that the Americans had flown.

Their previous high-altitude precision raids over Tokyo had failed miserably. For one thing, conditions were usually too windy for bombs dropped

at that altitude to hit their targets. Plus, the Japanese had one of the most advanced and

effective air defense systems in existence, a defense system

formulated to fend off high-altitude raids.

The architect of this low-altitude bombing raid was Curtis LeMay.

LeMay had led several dangerous and successful missions across Germany and North Africa

over the course of World War II.

Because of his fearless effectiveness,

he was put in charge of all strategic air attacks

against the Japanese home islands.

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