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During the last weeks of World War II, warships of the United States Navy, British Royal Navy, and the Royal New Zealand Navy bombarded several cities and industrial facilities in Japan. Most of these bombardments involved battleships and caused heavy damage to several of the factories targeted, as well as nearby civilian areas. The Japanese military did not attempt to attack the Allied fleet during this period, and none of the warships involved in the bombardments suffered any damage. The bombardments began on 14 and 15 July 1945 when United States warships attacked the cities of Kamaishi and Muroran. The next attack was made by a joint British and United States force against the city of Hitachi during the night of 17/18 July. A group of cruisers and destroyers subsequently shelled the Nojima Saki and Shionomisaki areas on 18 July and the night of 24/25 July, respectively. On 29 July, American and British warships attacked Hamamatsu, and on the night of 30/31 several American destroyers shelled Shimizu. The final bombardment took place on 9 August when Kamaishi was attacked again by American, British and New Zealand warships. The Allied naval bombardments disrupted industrial production in the cities targeted, and convinced many Japanese civilians that the war was lost. As many as 1,739 Japanese were killed in the attacks, and up to another 1,497 were wounded. The only Allied casualties were 34 prisoners of war who were killed in the bombardments of Kamaishi. ==Background== During the Pacific War the US Navy's fast battleships were mainly used to escort the groups of aircraft carriers which formed the United States Pacific Fleet's main striking force. They were occasionally used to bombard Japanese positions near the shore, however, and fought a small number of actions with Japanese warships.〔Whitley (1998), p. 17〕〔Willmott (2002), pp. 193–194〕 By mid-1945, cities and industrial facilities in the Japanese home islands were under sustained attack from United States Army Air Forces B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers based in the Mariana Islands. Attacks by Allied submarines and surface ships had also cut most of the country's trade routes, and US Navy aircraft carrier task groups had raided locations in the home islands on several occasions during 1945. Shortages of fuel had confined most of the Imperial Japanese Navy's (IJN's) surviving ships to port and forced the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service and IJN to hold its air units in reserve against the Allied invasion which was expected to be launched late in the year.〔Zaloga (2010), pp. 4–6, 53–54〕 Prior to the war, the Japanese military had assessed that coastal artillery was no longer suited to the country's circumstances. As a result, only a small number of strategic ports were protected by artillery capable of engaging enemy warships, and most of these guns were of relatively small calibers.〔Zaloga (2010), pp. 8–13〕 In mid-1945 the Allied naval commanders decided to use battleships to conduct a series of attacks against Japanese coastal cities. It was hoped that the Japanese military would respond to these bombardments by attacking the Allied forces with the aircraft which were being held in reserve to respond to the planned invasion of Japan, thereby exposing these aircraft to destruction by powerful forces of Allied fighter aircraft.〔Giangreco (2009), p. 88〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Allied naval bombardments of Japan during World War II」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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