Tokyo was full of carbonized bodies after the US Firebombing 80 years ago. Survivors want compensation

Great Yamaguchi and Mayuko Ono
| Associated Press

Tokyo – Over 100,000 people were killed in a single night 80 years ago, in the US Firebombing in Tokyo, the Japanese capital. The attack, made with conventional bombs, destroyed the center of Tokyo and filled the streets with piles of carbonized bodies.

The damages were comparable to the atomic bombardments, a few months later, in August 1945, but unlike these attacks, the Japanese government did not provide the victims, and the events of that day were largely ignored or forgotten.

Older survivors make an effort from the last ditch to tell their stories and request financial assistance and recognition. Some speak for the first time, trying to tell a younger generation about their lessons.

The 94 -year -old Shizuyo Takeuchi says that her mission is to say the history she witnessed at 14, speaking on behalf of those who died.

Red sky, carbonized bodies

On the night of March 10, 1945, hundreds of B-9 attacked Tokyo, throwing bombs with cluster with Napalm specially designed with sticky oil to destroy traditional Japanese and paper-style wooden houses from the “Shitamachi” crowded neighborhoods in the city center.

Takeuchi and her parents lost their own house in a previous bomb in February and were sheltering at the house on the banks of a relative. Her father insisted on crossing the river in the opposite direction from where the crowds were heading, a decision that saved the family. Takeuchi remembers that he went through the night under a red sky. Orange sunsets and sirens still make it uncomfortable.

The next morning, everything was burning. Two blackens attracted his eyes. Taking a closer look, and realized that one was a woman and what looked like a bunch of coal on her side was her child. “I was terribly shocked. … I was sorry for them, “she said.” But after seeing so many others, I was without emotion. “

Many of those who have not burned to death quickly jumped into the Sumida river and were crushed or drowned.

It is estimated that over 105,000 people died that night. A million others became homeless. The number of death exceeds those killed on August 9, 1945, the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.

But the bombing in Tokyo was largely overshadowed by the two atomic bombings. And the fire candies on dozens of other Japanese cities have received even less attention.

The bombing came after the collapse of Japanese air defenses and naval defenses following the US capture of a series of former Pacific Japanese fortresses, who allowed the B-29 superfresh bombers to easily hit the main islands of Japan. In the United States, in the United States, there has been an increasing frustration of war and Japanese military atrocities, such as the march of Bataan death.

Registering survivors’ voices

Ai Saotome has a house full of notes, photos and other materials that her father left behind when she died at the age of 90 in 2022. Her father, Katsumoto Saotome, was an award-winning writer and a Tokyo’s combating survivor. He has gathered accounts of his colleagues to raise awareness of civil death and the importance of peace.

Saotome says that the feeling of emergency they considered that her father and other survivors is not shared among the young generations.

Although her father published books about Firebombing in Tokyo and his victims, the raw material offered him new perspectives and an awareness of Japan’s aggression during the war.

It digitizes the material in the center of attacks and war damages in Tokyo, a museum that her father opened in 2002, after collecting records and artifacts about the attack.

“Our generation does not know much about the experience (survivors), but at least we can hear their stories and we can record their voices,” she said. “This is the responsibility of our generation.”

“In about 10 years, when we have a world in which no one remembers anything (about this), I hope these documents and records can help,” says Saotome.

Requests for financial aid

Post -war governments have offered 60 trillion Yen ($ 405 billion) in support of welfare for military veterans and grieved families and medical assistance for the survivors of atomic bombardments in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The civilian victims of Firebombings in the US have received nothing.

A group of survivors who want the recognition of the Government of suffering and financial aid fulfilled earlier this month, renewing their requests.

No government agency deals with civil survivors or keep their records. The Japanese courts rejected their compensation requirements of 11 million Yen ($ 74,300) each, saying that citizens should endure emergency suffering such as war. A group of parliamentarians from 2020 prepared a proposal project of half a million one million ($ 3,380) once, but the plan stopped due to opposition from members of the ruling party.

“This year will be our last chance,” said Yumi Yoshida, who lost her parents and sister in bombing, at a meeting, referring to the 80 -year -old from the defeat of Japan in the World War.

Burnt skin and screams

On March 10, 1945, Reiko Muto, a former assistant, was still on her bed still wearing the uniform and shoes. Muto jumped up when he heard aerial raid sirens and rushed to the pediatric department where she was a student assistant. With the elevators stopped due to the attack, he climbed up and lowered a lightly lighted staircase carrying infants to a shelter basement.

Soon, trucks began to arrive. They were taken to the basement and aligned “like tuna fish on a market”. Many had serious burns and wept and begging water. The scream and smell of the burnt skin remained with it for a long time.

Their resolution was the best it could do due to the lack of medical supplies.

When the war ended five months later, on August 15, it immediately thought: no fire bomb meant that it could leave the lights on. He finished his studies and worked as a nurse to help children and teenagers.

“What I passed should never be repeated,” she says.