Japan Press Weekly

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2013 March 6 - 12 [HISTORY]

Rallies held to remember Tokyo Air Raid tragedy

Marking the 68th anniversary of the Great Tokyo Air Raid by the U.S. Forces, citizens’ groups held gatherings in Tokyo to hear survivors’ testimonies.

Before dawn on March 10, 1945, about 300 U.S. B-29 bombers attacked Tokyo, and the Shitamachi area (the area of eastern downtown Tokyo) was reduced to ashes in just two and a half hours. The bombardment burnt down the homes of about one million residents and claimed more than 100,000 lives.

In Tokyo’s Koto Ward, some 300 people attended a rally on March 9.

Kameya Toshiko, as a girl, lost 6 members of her family in the bombings. In tears, she told participants her story that in the flames she had run around with her father, stumbling over charred bodies, and then found the bodies of her mother, brothers and sisters. “The war deprived us of everything. We must never cause a war again,” she said.

Yoshida Yutaka, professor at the graduate school of Hitotsubashi University, delivered a commemorative speech. He stressed that it is important for future generations to learn from the precious accounts of the war victims as many of them have passed away.

Three sixth graders, who took part in interview surveys of the survivors, said, “We want to build a Japan with neither military forces nor nuclear weapons.”

In the assembly, Matthias Neutzner, a founder of the association “February 13, 1945”, which works to hand down to younger people the stories of the February 1945 Dresden bombings in Germany, also gave a speech in solidarity with Japanese air raid victims and their supporters.

Similar meetings took place in Taito and Sumida wards on March 9 and 10.