Tokyo was filled with carbonized corpses after the US Fire pump. UU. 80 years ago. Survivors want compensation

Tokyo – More than 100,000 people died on one night 80 years ago on the American fire bomb in Tokyo, the Japanese capital. The attack, made with conventional bombs, destroyed the center of Tokyo and filled the streets with lots of carbonized bodies.

The damage was comparable to atomic bombings a few months later in August 1945, but unlike those attacks, the Japanese government has not helped the victims and events of that day have been ignored or forgotten.

The elderly survivors are making a last effort to tell their stories and press for financial assistance and recognition. Some are talking for the first time, trying to tell a younger generation about their lessons.

Shizuyo Takeuchi, 94, says that his mission is to continue telling the story he witnessed at age 14, speaking in the name of those who died.

Red skies, carbonized bodies

On the night of March 10, 1945, hundreds of B-29 assaulted Tokyo, throwing cluster bombs with Napalm specially designed with sticky oil to destroy traditional wooden houses and Japanese-style paper in the crowded neighborhoods of the “Shitamachi” center.

Takeuchi and his parents had lost their own home in an anterior fire bomb in February and took refuge in a relative’s house in the river. His father insisted on crossing the river in the opposite direction from where the crowds were directed, a decision that saved the family. Takeuchi remembers walking at night under a red sky. The sunsets and orange sirens still make it uncomfortable.

The next morning, everything had been burned. Two blackened figures caught their eyes. Looking more closely, he realized that one was a woman and what looked like a piece of coal beside her was her baby. “I was terribly shocked. … I felt sorry for them, “he said.” But after seeing so many others, in the end I had no emotions. “

Many of those who did not burn until death quickly jumped into the mired river and were crushed or drowned.

It is estimated that more than 105,000 people died that night. One million others were homeless. The death toll exceeds those killed in the atomic bombardment of August 9, 1945 of Nagasaki.

But Tokyo’s fire bomb has been largely eclipsed by the two atomic bombings. And fire bombs in dozens of other Japanese cities have received even less attention.

The bombing occurred after the collapse of Japanese air and naval defenses after the capture of the United States of a series of old Japanese strengths in the Pacific that allowed the B-29 bombers of Superfortress B-29 to easily hit the main islands of Japan. There was a growing frustration in the United States to the duration of war and the most Japanese Japanese military atrocities, such as the march of Bataan’s death.

Recording the voices of the survivors

Ai Saotome has a house full of notes, photos and other material that his father left when he died at age 90 in 2022. His father, Katsumoto Saotome, was an award -winning writer and a survivor of Tokyo fire pumps. He collected stories from his companions to raise awareness about civil deaths and the importance of peace.

Saotome says that the emergency feeling his father felt and other survivors are not shared among younger generations.

Although his father published books about Tokyo’s fire bomb and his victims, to go through his raw material gave him new perspectives and an awareness of Japan’s aggression during the war.

She is digitizing the material in the center of Tokyo’s raids and the damage of the war, a museum that her father opened in 2002 after collecting discs and artifacts about the attack.

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

“In about 10 years, when we have a world where nobody remembers anything (about this), I hope that these documents and records can help,” says Saotome.

Financial aid demands

Post -war governments have provided 60 billion yen ($ 405 billion) in well -being support for military veterans and disconsolate families, and medical support for survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Civil victims of the United States fire bombs received nothing.

A group of survivors who want the recognition of the government of their suffering and financial aid earlier this month, renewing their demands.

No government agency handles civil survivors or maintains their records. The Japanese courts rejected their compensation demands of 11 million yen ($ 74,300) each, saying that citizens had to endure suffering in emergencies such as war. A group of legislators in 2020 compiled a proposal draft of half a million Yen ($ 3,380) of unique payment, but the plan has stagnated due to the opposition of some ruling members of the party.

“This year will be our last chance,” said Yumi Yoshida, who lost his parents and sister in the bombing, in a meeting, referring to the 80th anniversary of the defeat of the Second World War of Japan.

Burned skin and screams

On March 10, 1945, Reiko Muto, a former nurse, was still carrying his uniform and shoes. Muto jumped when he heard Air Raid sirens and hastened the pediatric department where he was a nurse student. With the elevators arrested due to the raid, he climbed and lowered a ladder with little light that brought babies to a basement gym to take refuge.

Soon, trucks charges of people began to arrive. They were taken to the basement and aligned “like tuna in a market.” Many had serious burns and cried and asked for water. The screams and the smell of burned skin stayed with her for a long time.

Confirming them was the best thing he could do due to the shortage of medical supplies.

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

“What we pass should never be repeated,” she says.

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