Thebombing ofFukui (福井空襲,Fukui kūshū) on July 19, 1945, was part of thestrategic bombingair raids on Japan campaign waged by theUnited States against military and civilian targets and population centers during theJapan home islands campaign in the closing stages of thePacific War.^[1]

The city ofFukui lacked major targets of military significance, but was a prefectural capital and regional commercial centre on theHokuriku Main Line railway. It also housed many small industries which supplied to the Japanese war effort.

During early 1945, theUSAAF concentrated on bombing targets along the Pacific coastal regions of mainland Japan. The cities in this area were more populous and were more industrialised, and were closer to the American bases in theMariana Islands. The city ofTsuruga became the first city of theSea of Japan coast to be targeted by air raids on the night of July 12, 1945. Defences were light to non-existent, and in the bombing, over 70 percent of the city area was razed by incendiary bombs.^[2]

Thefirebombing of Fukui occurred a week later. On July 19, 1945, 133Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers launched fromTinian in the Marianas, arriving over Fukui at 2324 PM on a clear, cloudless night.^[3] More than 865 tons of incendiary bombs were dropped in a spiral pattern with a radius of 1.2 kilometers around the northwest of theFukui Castle ruins. The resultantfirestorm destroyed most of the city.^[4] Fukuicivil defense measures were crude at best.Air raid shelters consisted of a hole in the ground next to wooden houses with a wooden roof covered with a thin layer of soil and clay. Many people were burned alive in the firestorm. The estimated civilian casualties in the July 19 raid were 1,576 people killed (915 women and 661 men) with 6,527 injured of whom 107 subsequently died of their wounds. Of the city itself out of 25,691 structures before the bombing, 21,992 were destroyed, rendering most of the surviving populace homeless. A year after the war, theUnited States Army Air Forces'sStrategic Bombing Survey (Pacific War) reported that 84.8 percent of the city had been totally destroyed.^[5]

• Air raids on Japan
• Evacuations of civilians in Japan during World War II
• Grave of the Fireflies
• Akiyuki Nosaka

• Werrell, Kenneth P. (1996).Blankets of Fire. Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press.ISBN 978-1-56098-665-2.
• Bradley, F. J. (1999).No Strategic Targets Left. Contribution of Major Fire Raids Toward Ending WWII. Turner Publishing.ISBN 978-1-56311-483-0.
• Carter, Kit C. (1975).The Army Air Forces in World War II: Combat Chronology, 1941-1945. DIANE Publishing.ISBN 978-1-4289-1543-5.
• Crane, Conrad C. (1994).The Cigar that brought the Fire Wind: Curtis LeMay and the Strategic Bombing of Japan. JGSDF-U.S. Army Military History Exchange. ASIN B0006PGEIQ.
• Frank, Richard B. (2001).Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire. Penguin.ISBN 978-0-14-100146-3.
• Grayling, A. C. (2007).Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan. New York: Walker Publishing Company Inc.ISBN 978-0-8027-1565-4.
• Hoyt, Edwin P. (2000).Inferno: The Fire Bombing of Japan, March 9 – August 15, 1945. Madison Books.ISBN 978-1-56833-149-2.
• Shannon, Donald H. (1976).United States air strategy and doctrine as employed in the strategic bombing of Japan. U.S. Air University, Air War College. ASIN B0006WCQ86.
• Wainstock, Dennis (1996).The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb. Greenwood Publishing Group.ISBN 978-0-275-95475-8.

• Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications(in Japanese)
• 67 Japanese Cities Firebombed in World War II
• Drawing of Air-Raid Damaged Site of Fukui

• Fukui (city)
• World War II strategic bombing of Japan
• World War II strategic bombing by populated place
• 1945 in Japan
• Military history of Fukui Prefecture
• Firebombings in Japan

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles containing Japanese-language text
• Articles with Japanese-language sources (ja)