Just after midnight on 10 March 1945, 279 of 334 B-29 Superfortresses launched under Major General Curtis LeMay struck Tokyo in the most destructive single air raid in history. Abandoning high-altitude precision tactics, the bombers attacked at night from 5,000 to 9,000 feet, stripped of most defensive guns to carry more incendiaries. Nearly 2,000 tons of M-69 napalm bombs saturated the city’s wooden districts, creating a firestorm that consumed fifteen square miles of war factories and worker housing. Brigadier General Thomas Power, circling overhead for two hours, reported the capital as "a sea of flame." LeMay’s gamble—considered radical—paid off operationally. The March fire blitz proved that air power alone could shatter an urban-industrial economy, setting the precedent for the final atomic missions five months later.