Great blog! Keep it up!!!

The pamphlet you quote is very interesting! My guess is that just how worried the Japanese were about bombers depends on which period we are talking about. The groups of 2-3 bombers suggests to me that they were thinking of something like the Doolittle raid, nuisance raids launched from carriers, and not the later massed B-29 raids. One thing that I got from Quester’s book was the way that the fear of the bomber waxed and waned according to what other threats there were (so, eg, the French didn’t become really concerned about bombing until after the Maginot line was completed, that is, when they felt safe from invasion). So in 1938, Japan perhaps felt safe enough from invasion by just about anyone, but bombers were another matter, while in 1942-4, there was a buffer zone against bombers, but American submarines and island hopping were a greater concern. And there’s also a dynamic, I think, where fears tend to played up before a war, but played down during the war (to avoid panic). There may also have been some wishful “victory disease” thinking going on — of course the Americans will never get within range of Japan, so let’s put the workers’ minds at ease so they can get on with producing for the war economy.

But certainly, you have a point — despite any fear of the bomber that may have existed in the 1930s, by 1944-5 the air defences of the Japanese home islands were run down to such an extent that LeMay could strip his B-29’s of armour and guns, to maximise bombload. I’ll be interested to see what you turn up!

As far as home-made gas masks go, the British Government had considered such measures as late as 1929, based on a design from 1917; see my scribblings at http://www.nbcd.org.uk/articles/article_001.asp.

In this respect, there is a similarity between Japanese ideas and the British ‘tell the householder how to protect themselves’ policy of 1935-1940.

If I can briefly play devil’s advocate, I have a copy of Civil Defence Pamhlet No.9 (1948) entitled ‘Japanese Civil Defence’ issued by the UK Home Office.

This document says of Japanese civil defence:

“…failure was due to the A.R.P. authorities underestimating the scale of attack likely to be launched against them, as a result of the optimistic appreciation by the Military, who gave as their opinion, “the only raids that could be staged on the Japanese homeland would be of a spasmodic nature involving not more than two or three aircraft and that no bombs of greater weight than 500 lbs would be dropped.” In fact the raids envisaged would be of the tip and run variety. A.R.P. plans were accordingly built upon this false appreciation.”

Was Japan really so scared of the bomber, or were the authors of this pamphlet basing their conclusions on Japanese propaganda designed to reduce the public’s fear of air attack?

If the Japanese really thought that they were only at risk from small raids, then there is little similarity between Japanese and British fears. But if I’m being honest, the arguments above are more convincing; the building materials used were vulnerable and the Allies were not ignorant of this. The German city of Lübeck was singled out for attack by the RAF on account of its wooden buildings.

Also, why were only two or three aircraft are expected to attack?

My experience is that such studies were usually quite thorough, with interrogation and documentary evidence being used; however, the picture painted here doesn’t match that being put forward above.

I’m going to the archives tomorrow; there’s a file devoted to this pamphlet, so I’m going to have a look and see what the Home Office based their conclusions on.

Thanks for the translation, it makes sense. Activated charcoal is commonly used in gas masks for adsorption of the toxic gases, the chlorotropin (or whatever it is — I couldn’t find this in Google) might be used to treat the charcoal with, to help it bind to a specific gas more readily.

And knocking down parts of your own cities to make firebreaks, wow — that in itself demonstrates a pretty strong fear of the bomber!