WAS IT NECESSARY TO DROP THE BOMB?

SIXTH FLEET DURING INVASION OF IWO JIMA
WIKIPEDIA

FLAME THROWERS CLEAR OUT JAPANESE BUNKERS
WIKIPEDIA

MEMORIAL ON MT. SURIBACHI - WIKIPEDIA

USMC IWO JIMA MEMORIAL AT ARLINGTON - USMC

FIREBOMBING OF JAPAN

As the war in the marianas was escalating at a well planned rate, the purpose of the U.S. seizing the Marianas became obvious. As the airfields on Guam were finished our B-29s landed there by the hundreds. With Iwo Jima and Tinian already under our control, it was now time for the U.S. to deliver the final crushing blow to Japan. Major Gen. Curtis E. LeMay took over the XX1 Bomber Command, and with all the weapons at his disposal, started immediately on the complete destruction of all of Japan. The B-29s previously had bombed Japan with 500 pound bombs from high altitude. LeMay determined that incendiaries dropped from a low altitude would be devastating to the type of structures in Japan. E.I. Du Pont, the chemical company, came up with a compound of jellied gasoline called napalm. It would stick to anything it hit and set ferociously hot fires. LeMay loaded up his B-29s, 500 at the time, with incendiaries. The bombers in the leading formation generally carried napalm, which ignited small fires. A second wave of bombers dropped clusters of oil containers which sprayed their contents over the napalm fires, and the mixture ran through the towns in fiery streams. Then magnesium thermite bombs mixed with the oil and napalm set fires of fierce intensity. Tokyo was hit with hundreds of these incendiaries and became a holocaust. In the heart of the firestorm temperatures rose to 1800 degrees F, and water in the canals boiled. The plan was to burn every city in Japan to the ground. With 400-500 B-29s bombing from low altitude one by one the Japanese cities were burned to ashes. The raids incinerated aircraft factories, airfields, shipyards, and hundreds of prime industrial cites were completely destroyed. Practically every city was turned into an inferno.