The capture of the Mariana Islands in 1944 enabled the United States Army Air Forces to reach the Japanese home islands using the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. The U.S. firebombed Tokyo on the night of March 9–10, 1945, and killed more than 100,000 people in the deadliest conventional bombing in history, known as "Operation Meetinghouse". In a few hours, 100,000 people who were in Tokyo including civilians died either by the bombing or the conflagration that followed the bombing by 325 B-29's night attacks. The bombing was meant to burn wooden buildings and indeed the bombing caused fire that created a 50 m/s wind that is comparable to tornadoes. A total of 381,300 bombs amounting to 1783 tons, were used in the bombing.