The U.S. military bombed the city of Tokyo on March 4, 1945. Female rescue workers wearing air-raid hoods carried the corpses of Tokyo air raid victims.

　　The U.S. military bombed the city of Tokyo on March 4, 1945. The bodies of the victims of the Tokyo air raid were carried by female relief workers wearing air-raid hoods. The heavy bodies were carried on stretchers, which were difficult for the women to carry. 159 B-29s bombed the Tokyo city center extensively on March 4, killing about 650 people. The Cabinet decision on March 3, 1944, "Outline for Promoting General Evacuation," as well as other cabinet decisions and notices, continued to restrict the evacuation of all but school children. We will defend our posts at the cost of our lives." In November 1941, the Air Defense Law was amended to prohibit evacuation in the event of an air raid and to require citizens to extinguish fires.

　The first full-scale air raid on Tokyo by B-29 bombers began on November 24, 1944, and the raids prior to the Tokyo Air Raid of March 10, 1945 were strategic bombing raids that focused on airplane factories and industrial cities. The U.S. forces bombed from high altitudes, mostly during the daytime. In the case of Tokyo, precision bombing was carried out with the primary target being the Nakajima Aircraft Musashi Works, an aircraft factory. On November 27, they did not bomb Nakajima Aircraft at all, but raided Harajuku and other areas in Shibuya Ward. On January 27, 1945, downtown Ginza and Yurakucho were bombed, killing about 530 people. 119 B-29s bombed the downtown area, killing about 160 more in the wards. On February 25, unable to bomb the Nakajima planes before they left their base in Marianas, the primary target was switched to downtown Tokyo, where 172 B-29s, with bombs switched to incendiary bombs, raided the city. On March 4, another 159 B-29s bombed a wide area of Tokyo's wards, killing about 650 people.

　Full-scale air raids on Tokyo were classified after a major air raid on downtown from March 10, 1945. air raids after March 10 resulted in a huge number of deaths and countless piles of corpses. The bodies were cleared away with the same rough treatment as that used to dispose of corpses at the front lines, known as "battlefield sweeping." Since normal burials were not possible, temporary burials were made by digging holes in parks and temple grounds to bury the bodies. The body count was about 94,800 in the air raids from March to May 1945.