Yahata, Fukuoka

Yahata (八幡市, Yahata-shi) was a city in Japan until it was absorbed into the newly created city of Kitakyushu in 1963. Its former area is as of 2007 part of two distinct wards: Yahata Higashi-ku and Yahata Nishi-ku.

The city was fire-bombed in World War II in early August 1945 around the same time that factory workers in Kokura suspected their city would be a target for the atomic bombs and decided to release large amounts of black smoke into the air. The resulting combined smoke clouds obscured the nearby town of Kokura, causing the planes en route (Bockscar and Enola Gay) to drop the atomic weapon "Fat Man" to head to their secondary target, Nagasaki.