Japan Press Weekly

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2015 March 4 - 10 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Citizens victimized by Japanese Imperial government’s air-raid defense policy

Government policy on air-raid defense contributed to heavy civilian casualties in the U.S. air raids on cities throughout Japan during the final stage of World War II.

In March 1937, the Japanese Imperial government established the law on air-raid precautions and civilian defense, the Anti-Aircraft Defense Law. In the following year, as part of the campaign for instilling the expectation of anti-aircraft defense actions into ordinary people’s minds, the government published posters illustrating how to control a fire caused by enemy air attacks. One of the posters unrealistically depicted a man shoveling a firebomb out of a room.

In November 1941, the Anti-Aircraft Defense Law was revised to one obliging people to fight fires without attempting to escape from air raids and imposing a punishment for non-compliance. Four months later, the government amended the wartime special criminal law, seeking to punish those who refused to obey the government’s air-defense measures with the penalty of death.

Under these imposed policies, military facilities and residential areas in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Nagoya, and Kobe experienced U.S. air attacks on April 18, 1942.

Despite many civilian casualties caused by these air strikes, the government repeated, “There is nothing to be scared of by U.S. air raids. Stay in place and battle the flames!” It released to the press a statement instructing people to use gloves to toss away firebombs.

In December in the same year, the government issued a notification prohibiting all city dwellers from moving out to the countryside and ordering them to construct air-raid shelters near their homes to enable a swift fire extinguishing activities to commence. Furthermore, the government created a neighborhood association system to force people to take part in fire suppression activities during U.S. air raids.

This government policy resulted in horrendous civilian deaths in the devastating U.S. firebombings of Tokyo on March 10, 1945 as well as in other Japanese cities such as Nagoya and Osaka.