In the early hours of 10 March 1945, nearly three hundred B-29 bombers dropped napalm on the wooden districts of eastern Tokyo. In a few hours some 41 square kilometres burned and around one hundred thousand people died, almost as many as in Hiroshima on the day of the bomb. Today few visitors know the story. Twelve stops between the rebuilt Thunder Gate, the temple that burned with the city, the park where the dead were buried, the bridge trapped between two fires, the freezing river, the tower rising over the ashes, the hall that keeps the ashes of two disasters, the monument of names, the district of wooden houses, the shrine of Fukagawa, the old timber yards and the museum founded by survivors. Approximate audio duration: 18 minutes.
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Tokio, 10 de marzo de 1945: el bombardeo más mortífero de la historia
En la madrugada del 10 de marzo de 1945, casi trescientos bombarderos B-29 dejaron caer napalm sobre los barrios de madera del este de Tokio. En pocas horas ardieron unos 41 kilómetros cuadrados y murieron alrededor de cien mil personas, casi tantas como en Hiroshima el día de la bomba. Hoy es una historia que pocos visitantes conocen. Doce paradas entre la puerta del trueno reconstruida, el templo que se quemó con la ciudad, el parque donde enterraron a los muertos, el puente atrapado entre dos incendios, el río helado, la torre que se levanta sobre las cenizas, el salón que guarda las cenizas de dos catástrofes, el monumento de los nombres, el barrio de casas de madera, el santuario de Fukagawa, los antiguos depósitos de madera y el museo que fundaron los sobrevivientes. Duración aproximada de audio: 18 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~18 min of audio · 12 km on foot (~3 h walking) · about 3 h 30 min in total
You are standing in front of Kaminarimon, the Thunder Gate of Asakusa. Look at the giant red lantern and the statues of the gods of wind and thunder on either side. It is one of the most photographed sights in Tokyo.
It looks ancient, but it is not. The original gate burned in 1865. The one in front of you was only inaugurated in 1960, paid for by Matsushita Konosuke, the founder of Panasonic.
Asakusa is the heart of the shitamachi, the low city. That was the name for the eastern districts along the Sumida River, home to artisans, shopkeepers and workers. Narrow streets, wooden houses presse…
2
The Temple That Burned with the City
Look at the great main hall of Senso-ji, the oldest temple in Tokyo. Tradition says it was founded in the seventh century, when two fishermen found a small image of Kannon in their nets.
The hall you see is made of concrete. It was completed in 1958. The original, made of wood, burned in the early hours of 10 March 1945, along with the five-storey pagoda.
That night, people from the neighbourhood ran to the temple, seeking refuge in its wide grounds. But sparks and embers flew on the wind, and the wooden buildings caught fire one after another.
Not everything was lost. The Nitenmon gate, ea…
3
The Park Where the Dead Were Buried
You are in Sumida Park, on the banks of the river. In spring this strip of cherry trees is one of the busiest hanami spots in Tokyo. People sitting on blue tarps, food, laughter.
Look, near Kototoi Bridge, for a stone with an inscription. It is a memorial to the victims of the March 1945 bombing. Many who see it walk past without knowing what it commemorates.
After the raid there were so many bodies that the crematoria could not cope. The authorities buried them temporarily in parks, temple grounds and empty lots across the area. This park was one of those places.
Years later, after the war…
4
The Bridge Between Two Fires
You are on Kototoi Bridge. It is made of steel and opened in 1928, as part of the rebuilding of Tokyo after the 1923 earthquake. It is the same bridge that stood here that night.
Just after midnight on 10 March, incendiary bombs began falling on both banks. From Asakusa, people fled east, across the river. From Mukojima and Honjo, on the other side, they fled west.
The two crowds met in the middle of the bridge. They carried bundles, handcarts, bedding, whatever they had managed to save. No one could move forward or back.
Then the fire reached the bridge. The belongings caught alight, and t…
5
The River That Saved No One
Look at the Sumida River. Tour boats, joggers, the red-painted Azumabashi Bridge. It is hard to imagine this landscape in flames.
In a burning city, water seems the safest place. Thousands thought so that night. They waded into the Sumida and into the canals that crossed the eastern districts.
But it was March, and the water was freezing. Many died of cold. Others drowned, pushed under by those coming behind. And the air over the water was so hot and thick with smoke that it was hard to breathe.
A strong north wind was blowing that night. Driven by the wind, the fire moved faster than peopl…
6
Operation Meetinghouse
Look up. Tokyo Skytree is 634 metres tall and opened in 2012. It rises in Oshiage, in the old Honjo district, one of those almost entirely wiped out in 1945.
The raid had a code name: Operation Meetinghouse. On the afternoon of 9 March, 334 B-29 bombers took off from the Mariana Islands, about 2,400 kilometres to the south. Around 279 reached Tokyo and bombed it.
The American general Curtis LeMay changed the usual tactics. Instead of attacking by day from high altitude, he sent the planes at night and low, between roughly 1,500 and 2,800 metres. He had much of their defensive armament remove…
7
The Hall of Two Disasters
In front of you is the Tokyo Memorial Hall. It looks like a Buddhist temple with a pagoda tower, but it is made of concrete. It was designed by the architect Ito Chuta and completed in 1930.
This park has its own tragedy. Here there was a large empty site, a former army clothing depot. On 1 September 1923, after the Great Kanto Earthquake, tens of thousands of residents took refuge on it with their belongings.
A whirlwind of fire swept across the site. Some 38,000 people died in this one place. The hall was built to keep the ashes of the earthquake victims.
Twenty-two years later, history r…
8
The Monument of Names
This monument was unveiled in 2001. It remembers the victims of all the bombings of Tokyo, not just the March raid. There were more than a hundred attacks on the city between 1942 and 1945.
Inside it is a register with the names of the identified victims. The list keeps growing: relatives and neighbours still bring forward names that were never recorded.
How many died on the night of 10 March? No one knows exactly. The police at the time counted some 83,000 bodies. The most widely accepted estimates are close to one hundred thousand. More than a million people were left homeless.
For compar…
9
A City Built to Burn
You are in front of the Fukagawa Edo Museum. Inside, a whole street has been rebuilt at full scale, as this district looked around 1840: wooden tenement houses, a boat inn, a greengrocer's stall.
Look at those houses, if you go in. Thin walls, sliding paper doors, plank roofs. Whole families living in a single room, wall to wall with the neighbours.
A century later, the Fukagawa of 1945 was not so different. There were more factories and workshops, but homes were still made of wood and packed as tightly as ever. For the American planners, that was exactly what they were looking for.
Before …
10
The Shrine of Fukagawa
You are at Tomioka Hachimangu, the great shrine of Fukagawa. It was founded in 1627. In the Edo period it was the centre of neighbourhood life, and some of the city's earliest sumo tournaments were organised here.
Notice the stones in the grounds. There are monuments bearing the names of great sumo champions, the yokozuna. This place is part of the history of Japan's national sport.
In the early hours of 10 March 1945, the shrine burned like everything around it. The building you see today was rebuilt after the war in concrete, imitating the shape of the old one.
Fukagawa was one of the dis…
11
The Timber District
You are in Kiba Park. Today it is a large green space, with lawns, a suspension footbridge and the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo at one end. Its name hides what was here before.
Kiba means timber yard. Since the Edo period, the city's timber merchants were concentrated here. Logs arrived by water and were stored floating in ponds and canals.
Think about it: the district where the wood was stored for a city built of wood. In March 1945, Kiba and its surroundings burned completely.
Survivors from these districts later described similar scenes: the wind dragging embers and sheets of metal, …
12
The Museum the Survivors Built
You are in front of the Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage. It is a modest building on a residential street in Kitasuna. It was not built by the state, but by ordinary citizens.
It was driven by Saotome Katsumoto, who was twelve on the night of 10 March and survived the fire in this very district. He became a writer and devoted much of his life to collecting survivors' testimonies. He died in 2022.
In the 1990s, the Tokyo government planned a public peace museum that would cover the air raids. The project was frozen. So Saotome and other residents raised donations and opened this centr…
How long does the "Tokyo, 10 March 1945: the Deadliest Air Raid in History" audio tour take?
It has about 18 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 12 km walking route (~3 h on foot). Plan roughly 3 h 30 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "A Gate That Is Not So Old" (coordinates 35.71106, 139.79631). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Korean. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open Tokyo and pick "Tokyo, 10 March 1945: the Deadliest Air Raid in History". No account required to start.
