Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 (The Pacific War Trilogy Book 3)

by Ian W. Toll

As the two Superfortresses arrived over Kokura, the city was shrouded in smoke and haze. Peering down through the Plexiglas nose section, the crew could identify certain landmarks—but the Kokura Arsenal, the designated aiming point, was obscured. Fires were burning in nearby Yawata, which had been hit by a conventional bombing raid the previous day, and brown smoke had drifted over Kokura. Additional smoke was created by a tar-burning operation at a local steel foundry—a civil defense measure intended to obscure visibility from the air.49 The city’s antiaircraft batteries opened fire on the Bockscar and The Great Artiste shortly after their arrival. At first, the flak bursts were low, but they crept steadily higher as the two planes circled at 30,000 feet. The 509th Composite Group had been ordered to use visual bombing, meaning that the bombardier was to identify the aiming point through his Norden bombsight before releasing the weapon. Sweeney banked around three times, making three successive bomb runs. Each time the bombardier stated that he could not see the aiming point. The antiaircraft bursts were creeping steadily closer.