An American bomb dropped on Japan during World War II recently exploded after lying dormant for roughly 80 years.
The 500-pound bomb detonated on Wednesday at Miyazaki Airport in southwestern Japan. Video of the explosion shows the blast spewing a geyser of asphalt, leaving a crater in a taxiway about 23 feet wide and three feet deep.
No injuries were reported due to the blast, but a Japanese passenger aircraft had been taxiing in the area about two minutes before the explosion, local broadcaster MRT reported.
During World War II, the airport was used by the Imperial Japanese Navy to launch kamikaze attacks against Allied forces. The kamikaze pilots would fly their planes into U.S. and partner nation ships.
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Kamikaze pilots sank 26 U.S. and allied ships and damaged another 225 vessels From April to June 1945 at the battle of Okinawa, according to Naval History and Heritage Command. All told, at least 3,389 Americans were killed by kamikaze attacks. They represented the majority of the 4,907 sailors killed during the battle.
U.S. and allied aircraft dropped about 160,800 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs on the Japanese home islands between 1942 to 1945, according to a post-war bombing survey published by the U.S. Air Force. Of that total, carrier-based aircraft dropped 6,740 tons of ordnance on attack Japanese airfields, warships, and other military targets.
“The accuracy of low-level carrier plane attack was high, being at least 50% hits within 250 feet of the aiming point,” the bombing survey says.
Even though World War II ended 79 years ago, unexploded ordnance from the conflict continues to be discovered in Japan. Two unexploded bombs were found at the Miyazaki airport in 2011 and 2021.
In Fiscal Year 2023, the Japan Self-Defense Forces disposed of a total of 2,348 bombs from World War II that weighed a total of 37.5 tons.
It is unlikely that any data exists on how many of the U.S. bombs dropped on Japan during World War II failed to explode, said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula, dean of the Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies think tank.
“There’s no way they had that sort of situation awareness over tens of thousands of dumb bombs dropped enmasse on a single raid,” Deptula said. “Firebombs… well, that’s impossible to know.”
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