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The bombers' armament was reduced to increase range by decreasing weight. Each bomber launched with two .50-caliber (12.7 mm) machine guns in an upper turret and a .30-caliber (7.62 mm) machine gun in the nose. The aircraft were clustered closely and tied down on Hornet's flight deck in the order of launch.

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Japanese historians Takehiko Shibata and Katsuhiro Hara revealed that pilot Travis Hoover alone destroyed 52 homes and damaged 14. One bomb blew a woman from the second floor of her house to land unhurt in the street atop a mat. In the same neighborhood 10 civilians died, some burning to death in collapsing houses. Pilots Hoover, Robert Gray, David Jones, and Richard Joyce accounted for 75 of the 87 fatalities. Jones’s attack claimed the most lives—27.

Gray strafed what he thought was a factory, complete with a rooftop air defense surveillance tower. But it was Mizumoto Primary School, where students, like many across Japan, attended half-day classes on Saturdays. After school let out at 11 a.m, many students had stayed to help clean classrooms; one died in the strafing attack. . . .