Today would have been my father’s 100th birthday.
It is also the 72nd anniversary of his active participation in “Operation Meeting House” the single deadliest air raid in WWII.
The Tokyo firebombing has long been overshadowed by the U.S. atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which preceded the Japanese surrender that ended World War II the following August. But the burning of the capital, which resulted in more immediate deaths than either of the nuclear bombings, stands as a horrifying landmark in the history of warfare on noncombatants.
<snip>
More than 300 B-29 "Superfortress" bombers dropped nearly a half-million M-69 incendiary cylinders over Tokyo that night and early morning, destroying some 16 square miles of the city. The attack, coming a month after a similar raid on Dresden, Germany, brought the mass incineration of civilians to a new level in a conflict already characterized by unprecedented bloodshed.
<snip>
The M-69s, which released 100-foot streams of fire upon detonating, sent flames rampaging through densely packed wooden homes. Superheated air created a wind that sucked victims into the flames and fed the twisting infernos. Asphalt boiled in the 1,800-degree heat. With much of the fighting-age male population at the war front, women, children and the elderly struggled in vain to battle the flames or flee.
Ref: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0310-08.htm
I will never know what his thoughts were as his B29 (one of 334) left the Mariana Islands headed for Tokyo on 3/9/1945. Or of the aftermath of the incendiary raids that destroyed a significant percentage of most of Japan’s cities, wiped out a quarter of all housing in the country, made nine million people homeless, killed at least 187,000 civilians, and injured 214,000 more ...
Or of the apocalyptic as historian John Dower described in his 1986 book “War Without Mercy”, “The heat from the conflagration was so intense that in some places canals boiled, metal melted, and buildings and human beings burst spontaneously into flames”
Only when asked, would my father share tales of his early days flying, of being a top gun style flight instructor between wars, of the terrors inherent in flying, of his Air Rescue missions during the Korean Conflict, of his SAC jet jockey days during the Cuban Missile Crisis/Cold War.
However, he never ever mentioned or discussed WWII, the aftermath, Korea or any real details of combat involvements. Not even when I, as an adult, plied him with bourbon in an attempt to loosen his tongue.
Long after his death and only after my mother died did I discover the citations, the awards, and the miscellany paraphernalia of a lifetime of service to the military, to Aerospace Medicine, to the varied civilian civic involvements.
As an only (remaining) child, I inherited a massive amount of memories-both known and secret-that I kept in storage until I could bring myself to open boxes (which took about 5 years for my heart to attempt).
In the last of the boxes, kept separate from everything else was a secure box containing the medals, orders, citation letters etc. covering his mission beginning on his birthday March 9, 1945.
To say I was stunned at my discovery is putting it mildly-especially so since my father moved heaven and earth 8 years later to adopt orphaned me in my birthplace of Tokyo. Difficult to wrap mind around that karma…
72 years later, the memories soon to wane of what was the single deadliest air raid against civilians, what lessons learned?
******
Learn more:
Japan Air Raids.Org: A Bilingual Historic Archive with survivor accounts and many documents and photos from the raid
http://www.japanairraids.org/
The Asia-Pacific Journal: “That Unforgettable Day (survivor drawings & accounts)
http://apjjf.org/2011/9/3/Sumida-Local-Cultural-Research-Center-of-Taize-/3470/article.html
The Asia-Pacific Journal: “The Great Tokyo Air Raid and the Bombing of Civilians in World War II”
http://apjjf.org/-The-Asahi-Shimbun-Culture-Research-Center-/3320/article.html
3/10/2015 The Japan Times article: “Deadly WWII U.S. firebombing raids on Japanese cities largely ignored”
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/03/10/national/deadly-wwii-u-s-firebombing-raids-on-japanese-cities-largely-ignored/#.WMH7EU0zWih
3/9/11 Wired article: “Burning The Heart Out of The Enemy”
https://www.wired.com/2011/03/0309incendiary-bombs-kill-100000-tokyo/
3/9/2015 Air & Space article “The Deadliest Air Raid in History”:
http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/deadliest-air-raid-history-180954512/
3/10/2005 Common Dreams article: “1945 Tokyo Firebombing Left Legacy of Terror, Pain”
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0310-08.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo