The horror of atomic warfare seared Hiroshima and Nagasaki into public memory. But the air raid on Tokyo that killed just as many was brushed aside and buried
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskMost readers of this news story shuddered and turned the page. Saotome Katsumoto’s reaction was quite different. Here, brought into the glare of daylight, was the tragedy that had been his only subject for as long as he had been a writer: the American bombing raid on Tokyo which, on a single night in March 1945, had killed around 100,000 people and left a million homeless.
The inferno had begun with his father yelling at him, sometime in the earliest hours of March 10th 1945. He leapt from bed and pulled on his clothes: his khaki civilian uniform, then a judo robe. He also grabbed his only treasure, a cloth pouch of old coins. The family was poor, his mother a seamstress and his father, when he wasn’t drinking, a street-seller. Treasures were scarce.
With their stuff piled on a handcart, they struggled down the street: himself, his parents and his two sisters. People were crowding and shouting everywhere, pushing from every side. But so was the fire, chasing them like a living thing. Alleyways were blocked with blazing futons, and molten glass hung from windows. The heat was so intense that if they passed a water-bucket his father would douse them all, but in moments his judo robe was dry again.
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