Firestorm in Tokyo

[Tanaka]

Radio warnings came at 10.30pm and the sirens wailed soon after. Then towards midnight, the deep bass rumble of 280 'B-San' bombers reached the ears of tokyo citizens. It was an unfamiliar sound, for in previous raids the giants had been silent silver midgets glinting high in the daytime sky. Now on the clear breezy night of March 9/10, 1945, the pathfinders put down napalm markers on the working-class suburb of Shitamachi. Wave after wave of bombers followed, dropping a torent of incendiery bombs.
Within half an hour the flames were far beyond the endevours of the firefighters. The wind fanned the fires into towering fireballs that whoosed across canals and firebreaks. The wind grew stronger in the intense heat, reaching 40mph and pushing along the walls of fire to outstrip running feet. people suffocated for lack of oxygen or collapsed with lungs seared by hot gases. Many plunged into the river - but drowned as crowds pressed in on them. Fusako Sasaki wrote later: 'As i ran, i kept my eyes on the sky. It was like a fireworks display as the incendiaries exploded ... People were aflame, rolling and writing in agony, screaming piteously for help, but beyond all mortal assistance.'
More than 2000 tonnes of incendaries were dropped that night, concentrated on a 12sq mile area. The glow could be seen 150 miles away. The all-clear sounded about 5am, but the last fires were not extinguised for 4 days. By then 16sq miles of the city had been destroyed. The piles of dead took 25 days to clear. Most were unrecognisable charcoal bodie, some inseparably fused in the clasp of their final companions.
They certainly numbered more than 80 000, perhaps as many as 200 000. Many of the 1.8 million shocked, emaciated and terribly burned homeless survivors tried to find safety outside Tokyo. In hospitals swamped by the injuried there was no Plasma, no painkillers, not even bandages.

[jdeleur]

That was truly a nightmare for those people.

[Tanaka]

absolutly mate, you often hear people talking about the horrors of places like Dresden, but people don't seem to realise that this was going on almost every night over Japan, and most places got hit far worse than European cities did. One Japanese city after just one fire raid was 99.5% completly destroyed

[jdeleur]

That's one thing.
Also a lot of reference material is gone

[jdeleur]

Bombs falling on Tokyo.



Pics of Tokyo after a bombing.

[von papen]

i think it is the a bomb attacks which get the most press, many bombings of axis citys get little sympathy unless the horrors of it are shown to the public, the japanese would have fought well into 1946 without the bombs droped,out of all the axis nations id say the japs were the most detemined fighters i have ever heard off

[jdeleur]

I agree with that.

[Helmut Von Moltke]

it is sad that these victims aren't remembered as much as, for example, Dresden, where a new movie is coming out about it. Tokyo seems to have pretty much covered up it's bombing scars without leaving a trace, ersaing history.

[Tanaka]

some of the cities still have some ruins left in them, i know Hiroshima and Nagasaki still have some quite large ruins left, and i doubt the Japanese want to erase fully what happened otherwise people wouldn't remeber what they went through.

Some things are almost impossible to erase though and will always haunt those that see it, like the shadow of a man sitting, left on a step in Hiroshima which was permanently burned into the stone when the bomb fell as his body shielded it for a split second before he was vapourised

[von papen]

im guessing much of the japanese buildings were still useing timber, bombing these would have left little to see

[Tanaka]

yes most Japanese towns and cities, even major ones like Tokyo were still largely made of wood, whichis why the Americans switched to fire bombing raids, just burn them to the ground one by one

[von papen]

were there any japanese movements against the war? its just that mostly the japanese people seem like they all would have fought to the bitter end!

[Tanaka]

not really movements, there may have been individuals against it but no large numbers. Remember the Emperor was for the war and when someone who you regard as a living god is for something so are you. Just look at the way they surrendered at the end of the war, only when the Emperor said enough was enough did people stop.
But if the Emperor had said fight on till the death it would of happened, believe me

[von papen]

thats the way it should be! the people follow their leader to the end, thats loyalty!

[jdeleur]

thats the way it should be! the people follow their leader to the end, thats loyalty!

You can call it loyalty but i call i stupid.
If your boss tells you to jump from a flat will you do that or do you think that's no good.

Thinking saves lives...