Japan Press Weekly

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2016 March 9 - 15 [PEACE]

Tokyoites demand building of facility to remember Tokyo air raids

A group of Tokyoites on March 10 took to the streets in an old downtown area in Tokyo to collect signatures calling for the construction of a public peace memorial museum to commemorate the Pacific War and the 1945 Great Tokyo Air Raid.

Air-raid survivors and bereaved families have long been requesting that the Tokyo metropolitan government come up with a plan to build such a facility.

Before dawn on March 10, 71 years ago, about 300 U.S. B-29s dropped napalm bombs over densely populated districts in downtown Tokyo. This was flagrant indiscriminate saturation bombing targeting non-combatant citizens. The 2-hour carpet bombing killed more than 100,000 people.

Receiving a handbill from the group on the street, a woman in her 40s said, “My grandmother was killed in the war. I don’t know where I can find accurate historical information about the Tokyo air raids. I want related materials to be preserved before memories of the war fade away.”

Yoshida Yumiko who was orphaned at the age of three in an air raid said, “People from all over the world come to Tokyo. So, to send them a message of peace, I think Tokyo should have a facility with exhibits depicting the Tokyo air raids and commemorating air-raid victims.

On the same day, a memorial meeting took place near Kototoi Bridge where more than 7,000 people were burned to death or suffocated in the hellfire as they rushed to the bridge from both sides of the river. Similar events were also held on the previous day in front of the mother-child commemorative statute and the memorial monument for air-raid victims at Ueno Park.

Past related article:
> People commemorate victims of Great Tokyo Air Raid [March 10, 2015]