The first air raid hit Nagasaki just after midnight June 17, 1944.

Twenty-four American B-29 bombers carrying 72 tons of incendiary bombs from China attacked the Mitsubishi factories and shipyard - the city's prime military targets.

Most bombs fell on nearby forests. But 13 people were killed, 26 injured and 10 houses were destroyed or damaged, according to a city history by the Nagasaki International Culture Hall.

In all, five air strikes hit Nagasaki before the atomic bombing Aug. 9, 1945. Damage was fairly light, which was one reason the city was chosen as a potential target for the atomic bomb. That would make it easier to measure the bomb's effect.

While the toll from earlier bombings was not severe, it was enough for authorities to order three evacuations of congested neighborhoods near war plants and government institutions in 1944 and 1945.

The abandoned homes were then destroyed to prevent potential fires from spreading to the war plants.

The people who had been evacuated moved to outlying areas, reducing Nagasaki's population from about 286,000 in January 1944 to 240,000 when the atomic bomb dropped.

As elsewhere in World War II, Nagasaki residents dealt with rations of food and clothes.

Sweet potatoes were planted in school yards, and even pumpkin stalks and potato vines showed up on dinner tables.

As more men and teen-agers went off to war, more women, girls and boys were drafted to work in Mitsubishi's arms factory, steel works and huge shipyard. Ages of the workers got even younger.

Koreans were forced from their homeland to work in Nagasaki. Prison inmates bolstered the shipyard's work force.

In 1944, the Mitsubishi shipyard was ordered to increase its production of suicide torpedo boats - dubbed shinyo, meaning "trembling ocean boat."

TNT was to be put into each boat's bow to be rammed against ships invading Kyushu island.

By the summer of 1945, elementary school classes were dispersed among neighborhood homes and shrines in anticipation of bombing attacks.

On Aug. 8, 1945, newspapers published an announcement from the Japanese government that "on Aug. 6, a small B-29 squadron attacked the city of Hiroshima with a new-type bomb and inflicted considerable damage."

The announcement contained no other details.