T he Asia-Pacif ic Jo urnal, Vo l. 12, Issue 3, No . 4 , January 20 , 20 14 .

Bombs Burst ing in Air: St at e and cit izen responses t o t he US f irebombing and At omic bombing of

Japan1

あぁ、宙に響きわたる爆音　米国の空襲、原爆投下に対する国家と市民の反応あぁ、宙に響きわたる爆音　米国の空襲、原爆投下に対する国家と市民の反応

Mark Selden

Then co nquer we mus t, when o ur cause it is jus t,And this be o ur mo tto : "In Go d is o ur trus t."And the s tar-spangled banner in triumph shall waveO'er the land o f the free and the ho me o f the brave!

I US Firebo mbing and At o mic Bo mbing o f Japan

This paper assesses and co mpares the impact and his to rical s ignificance o f the firebo mbing and ato mic bo mbing o f Japanese citiesin the his to ry o f war and the his to ry o f disas ter. Japan’s decis io n to surrender, pivo ting o n is sues o f firebo mbing and ato micbo mbing, So viet entry into the war, and the o rigins o f So viet-American co nfro ntatio n, is the mo s t fiercely debated subject intwentieth century American glo bal his to ry. The surrender ques tio n, ho wever, is addressed o nly in pass ing here. The fo cus is rathero n the human and so cial co nsequences o f the bo mbings , and their legacy in the his to ry o f warfare and his to rical memo ry in the lo ngtwentieth century. Part o ne pro vides an o verview o f the calculus that culminated in the final year o f the war in a US s trategy centeredo n the bo mbing o f civilians and assesses its impact in shaping the glo bal o rder. Part two examines the bo mbing in Japanese andAmerican his to rical memo ry including his to ry, literature, co mmemo ratio n and educatio n. What explains the po wer o f the des ignatio no f the po s twar as the ato mic era while the area bo mbing o f civilians by fire and napalm, which wo uld so pro fo undly shape the futureo f warfare in general, American wars in particular, faded to virtual invis ibility in Japanese, American and glo bal co nscio usness?

Wo rld War II was a landmark in the develo pment and deplo yment o f techno lo gies o f mass des tructio n asso ciated with air po wer,no tably the B-29 bo mber, napalm, fire bo mbing, and the ato mic bo mb. In Japan, the US air war reached peak intens ity with areabo mbing and climaxed with the ato mic bo mbing o f Japanese cities between the night o f March 9-10 and the Augus t 15, 1945surrender.

The s trategic and ethical implicatio ns and human co nsequences o f the nuclear bo mbing o f Hiro shima and Nagasaki have generated avas t, co ntentio us literature. By co ntras t, the US des tructio n o f mo re than s ixty Japanese cities prio r to Hiro shima has been s lighted,at leas t until recently, bo th in the scho larly literatures in English and Japanese and in po pular co nscio usness . It has beeno vershado wed by the ato mic bo mbing and by hero ic narratives o f American co nduct in the “Go o d War” that has been at the center o f

American natio nal co nscio usness thereafter.2Arguably, ho wever, the central breakthro ughs that wo uld characterize the American wayo f war subsequently o ccurred in area bo mbing o f no nco mbatants prio r to the ato mic bo mbing o f Hiro shima and Nagasaki. A.C.Grayling explains the different respo nses to firebo mbing and ato mic bo mbing this way:

. . . the frisson o f dread created by the tho ught o f what ato mic weapo nry can do affects tho se who co ntemplate itmo re than tho se who actually suffer fro m it; fo r whether it is an ato m bo mb rather than to ns o f high explo s ives andincendiaries that do es the damage, no t a jo t o f suffering is added to its victims that the burned and buried, the

dismembered and blinded, the dying and bereaved o f Dresden o r Hamburg did no t feel.”3

Grayling do es , ho wever, go o n to no te the different experiences o f survivo rs o f the two types o f bo mbing, particularly as a result o fradiatio n sympto ms fro m the ato mic bo mb, with added dread in the case o f the Hiro shima and Nagasaki hibakusha, no t o nly fo rthemselves but also fo r future generatio ns .

If o ther natio ns , no tably Germany, England and Japan led the way in area bo mbing during Wo rld War II, US targeting o f entire citieswith co nventio nal weapo ns emerged in 1944-45 o n a s cale that quickly dwarfed all previo us des tructio n. Targeting fo r the mo s t partthen and subsequently essentially defenseless po pulatio ns , it was an appro ach that co mbined techno lo gical predo minance with aprio rity o n minimizatio n o f US casualties . This wo uld beco me a hallmark o f the American way o f war in campaigns fro m Ko rea andIndo china to the Gulf and Iraq Wars . The result wo uld be the decimatio n o f no nco mbatant po pulatio ns and extrao rdinary “kill ratio s ”favo ring the US military. Yet fo r the US, victo ry in subsequent wars—Ko rea, Indo china, Afghanis tan and Iraq being the mo s t no table—wo uld pro ve extrao rdinarily elus ive. This is o ne reaso n why, s ix decades o n, Wo rld War II retains its aura fo r Americans as the “Go o dWar”, a co nceptio n that renders diff icult co ming to terms with the mass ive bo mbing o f civilians in the final year o f the war.

As Michael Sherry and Cary Karacas have po inted o ut fo r the US and Japan respectively, pro phecy preceded practice in thedes tructio n o f Japanese cities . Sherry o bserves that “Walt Disney imagined an o rgias tic des tructio n o f Japan by air in his 1943animated feature Victo ry Thro ugh Air Po wer (based o n Alexander P. De Seversky’s 1942 bo o k),” while Karacas no tes that the bes t-selling Japanese writer Unna Juzo , beginning in his early 1930s “air-defense no vels ”, anticipated the des tructio n o f To kyo by

bo mbing.4

Curtis LeMay was appo inted co mmander o f the 21s t Bo mber Co mmand in the Pacific o n January 20 , 1945. Capture o f the Marianas ,including Guam, Tinian and Saipan in summer 1944 had placed Japanese cities within effective range o f the B-29 “Superfo rtress ”bo mbers , while Japan’s depleted air and naval po wer and a blo ckade that cut o ff o il supplies left it virtually defenseless agains tsus tained air attack.

The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan FocusIn-depth critical analysis of the forces shaping the Asia-Pacific...and the world.

Aerial pho t o o f T o kyo aft er t he bo mbing o f March9 -10 . US Nat io nal Archives

The full fury o f firebo mbing and napalm was unleashed o n the night o f March 9-10 , 1945 when LeMay sent 334 B-29s lo w o ver To kyo

fro m the Marianas .5 Their miss io n was to reduce much o f the city to rubble, kill its citizens , and ins till terro r in the survivo rs .Stripped o f their guns to make mo re ro o m fo r bo mbs , and flying at altitudes averaging 7,000 feet to evade detectio n, the bo mberscarried two kinds o f incendiaries : M47s , 100-po und o il gel bo mbs , 182 per aircraft, each capable o f s tarting a majo r fire, fo llo wed

by M69s , 6 -po und gelled-gaso line bo mbs , 1,520 per aircraft in additio n to a few high explo s ives to deter firefighters .6 The attack o nan area that the US Strategic Bo mbing Survey es timated to be 84.7 percent res idential succeeded beyo nd the wildes t dreams o f airfo rce planners .

Nature reinfo rced man's handiwo rk in the fo rm o f akakaze, the red wind that swept with hurricane fo rce acro ss the To kyo plain andpro pelled fires to rms with terrifying speed and intens ity. The wind dro ve temperatures up to eighteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit,creating superheated vapo rs that advanced ahead o f the flames , killing o r incapacitating their victims . "The mechanisms o f deathwere so multiple and s imultaneo us—o xygen deficiency and carbo n mo no xide po iso ning, radiant heat and direct flames , debris and

the trampling feet o f s tampeding cro wds—that causes o f death were later hard to ascertain . . .”7

The Strategic Bo mbing Survey pro vided a technical descriptio n o f the fires to rm and its effects o n To kyo :

The chief characteris tic o f the co nflagratio n . . . was the presence o f a fire fro nt, an extended wall o f fire mo ving toleeward, preceded by a mass o f pre-heated, turbid, burning vapo rs . . . . The 28-mile-per-ho ur wind, measured a milefro m the fire, increased to an es timated 55 miles at the perimeter, and pro bably mo re within. An extended fire swepto ver 15 square miles in 6 ho urs . . . . The area o f the fire was nearly 100 percent burned; no s tructure o r itsco ntents escaped damage.

The survey co ncluded—plaus ibly, but o nly fo r events prio r to Augus t 6 ,1945—that

“pro bably mo re perso ns lo s t their lives by fire at To kyo in a 6-ho ur perio d than at any time in the his to ry o f man. Peo ple diedfro m extreme heat, fro m o xygen deficiency, fro m carbo nmo no xide asphyxiatio n, fro m being trampled beneath the feet o fs tampeding cro wds , and fro m dro wning. The larges t number o fvictims were the mo s t vulnerable: wo men, children and theelderly.”

Ho w many peo ple died o n the night o f March 9-10 in what flightco mmander Gen. Tho mas Po wer termed “the greates t s ingle disas terincurred by any enemy in military his to ry?” The Strategic Bo mbing Surveyes timated that 87,793 peo ple died in the raid, 40 ,918 were injured, and1,008 ,005 peo ple lo s t their ho mes . The To kyo Fire Departmentes timated 97,000 killed and 125,000 wo unded. Acco rding to Japanese

po lice s tatis tics , the 65 raids o n To kyo between December 6 , 1944 and Augus t 13, 1945 resulted in 137,582 casualties , 787,145

ho mes and buildings des tro yed, and 2,625,279 peo ple displaced.8 The figure o f ro ughly 100 ,000 deaths , pro vided by Japanese andAmerican autho rities , bo th o f who m may have had reaso ns o f their o wn fo r minimiz ing the death to ll, seems to me arguably lo w in

light o f po pulatio n dens ity, wind co nditio ns , and survivo rs ’ acco unts .9 With an average o f 103,000 inhabitants per square mile andpeak levels as high as 135,000 per square mile, the highes t dens ity o f any indus trial city in the wo rld, 15.8 square miles o f To kyowere des tro yed o n a night when fierce winds whipped the flames and walls o f fire blo cked tens o f tho usands who attempted to flee.An es timated 1.5 millio n peo ple lived in the burned o ut areas . Given the near to tal inability to fight fires o f the magnitude pro duced

that night10 , it is po ss ible, given the interes t o f the autho rities to minimize the scale o f death and injury and the to tal inability o fthe civil defense effo rts to respo nd usefully to the fires to rm, to imagine that casualties may have been several times higher thanthe figures presented o n bo th s ides o f the co nflict. Stated differently, my view is that it is likely that the number o f fatalities wassubs tantially higher: this is an is sue that merits the attentio n o f researchers , beginning with the unpublished reco rds o f the USStrategic Bo mbing Survey.

The s ingle effective Japanese go vernment measure taken to reduce the s laughter o f US bo mbing was the 1944 evacuatio n to theco untrys ide o f 400 ,000 third to s ixth grade children fro m majo r cities , 225,000 o f them fro m To kyo , with 300 ,000 firs t to third

graders fo llo wing in early 1945.11

No previo us o r subsequent co nventio nal bo mbing raid anywhere ever came clo se to generating the to ll in death and des tructio n o fthe great To kyo raid o f March 9-10 . Fo llo wing the To kyo raid o f March 9-10 , the firebo mbing was extended natio nwide. In the ten-dayperio d beginning o n March 9 , 9 ,373 to ns o f bo mbs des tro yed 31 square miles o f To kyo , Nago ya, Osaka and Ko be. Overall, bo mbings trikes des tro yed 40 percent o f the 66 Japanese cities targeted, with to tal to nnage dro pped o n Japan increas ing fro m 13,800 to ns

in March to 42,700 to ns in July.12 If the bo mbing o f Dresden pro duced a ripple o f public debate in Euro pe, no dis cernible wave o frevuls io n, no t to speak o f pro tes t, to o k place in the US o r Euro pe in the wake o f the far greater des tructio n o f Japanese cities andthe s laughter o f civilian po pulatio ns o n a s cale that had no parallel in the his to ry o f bo mbing.

Viewed fro m ano ther angle, it wo uld be wo rth inquiring abo ut Japanese respo nses to the bo mbing. Japanese ideo lo gicalmo bilizatio n and co ntro l was such that there are no s igns o f res is tance to the go vernment’s suicidal perpetuatio n o f the war at anytime during the bo mbing campaign. Whatever the suffering, mo s t Japanese then and subsequently appear to have accepted thelegitimacy o f the decis io n to co ntinue fighting a ho peless war, a theme to which I return belo w. Overall, by Sahr Co nway-Lanz ’scalculatio n, the US firebo mbing campaign des tro yed 180 square miles o f 67 cities , killed mo re than 300 ,000 peo ple and injured an

additio nal 400 ,000 , figures that exclude the ato mic bo mbing o f Hiro shima and Nagasaki.13 Karacas and Fisk co nclude that thefirebo mbing raids “des tro yed a s ignificant percentage o f mo s t o f Japan’s cities , wiped o ut a quarter o f all ho us ing in the co untry,made nine millio n peo ple ho meless , and killed at leas t 187,000 civilians , and injured 214,000 mo re,” while sugges ting that the

actual figures are likely higher.14

Thro ugho ut the spring and summer o f 1945 the US air war in Japan reached an intens ity that is s till perhaps unrivaled in the

magnitude o f human s laughter.15 That mo ment was a pro duct o f the co mbinatio n o f techno lo gical breakthro ughs , Americannatio nalism, and the ero s io n o f mo ral and po litical s cruples pertaining to the killing o f civilians . The po int is no t to separate theUnited States fro m o ther participants in Wo rld War II, but to sugges t that there is mo re co mmo n gro und in the war po licies o f Japanand the United States in their dis regard o f citizen victims than is no rmally reco gnized in the annals o f his to ry and jo urnalism.

Places t he Unit ed St at es Has Bo mbed, 1854 -

Ongo ing. Art ist elin o ’Hara slavick21

The targeting fo r des tructio n o f entire po pulatio ns , whether indigeno us peo ples , religio us infidels , o r o thers deemed inferio r,threatening o r evil, may be as o ld as human his to ry, but the fo rms it takes are as new as the lates t techno lo gies o f des tructio n ands trategic inno vatio n, o f which firebo mbing and nuclear weapo ns are particularly no table in defining the nature o f war in the lo ng

twentieth century.16 The mo s t impo rtant way in which Wo rld War II shaped the mo ral and techno lo gical teno r o f mass des tructio nwas the ero s io n in the co urse o f war o f the s tigma asso ciated with the sys tematic targeting o f civilian po pulatio ns fro m the air, andeliminatio n o f the co ns traints , which fo r so me years had res trained certain air po wers fro m area bo mbing. What was new was bo ththe scale o f killing made po ss ible by the new techno lo gies and the ro utinizatio n o f mass killing o f no n-co mbatants , o r s tateterro rism. If area bo mbing remained co ntro vers ial thro ugho ut much o f Wo rld War II, so mething to be co ncealed o r denied by itspractitio ners , by the end it wo uld beco me the ackno wledged centerpiece o f war making, emblematic abo ve all o f the American way o fwar even as the nature o f the targets and the weapo ns were trans fo rmed by new techno lo gies and co nfro nted new fo rms o fres is tance. In this I emphas ize no t US uniqueness but the quo tidian character o f targeting civilians fo und thro ugho ut the his to ry o fco lo nialism and carried to new heights by Germany, Japan, Britain and the US during and after Wo rld War II.

Co ncerted effo rts to pro tect civilians fro m the ravages o f war peaked in the late nineteenth century, with the League o f Natio nsfo llo wing Wo rld War I, and again in the aftermath o f Wo rld War II with the fo unding o f the United Natio ns , German and Japanese War

Crimes Tribunals , and the 1949 Geneva Acco rds and its 1977 Pro to co l.17 The Nuremberg Indictment defined “crimes agains thumanity” as “murder, exterminatio n, ens lavement, depo rtatio n, and o ther inhumane acts co mmitted agains t any civilian po pulatio n,befo re o r during the war,” language that co uld be interpreted to reso nate po werfully with the area bo mbing campaigns co nducted no t

o nly o f Japan and Germany but also by Britain and the US.18 Fo r the mo s t part, these effo rts have do ne little to s tay the hand o fpo wer, tho ugh they have so metimes aro used public co nscio usness and pro vided a reference po int fo r campaigns aiming to pro tectcivilians fro m des tructio n. And while the ato mic bo mb wo uld leave a deep imprint o n the co llective co nscio usness o f the twentiethcentury, in mo s t co untries memo ry o f the area bo mbings and firebo mbing o f majo r cities so o n disappeared fro m the co nscio usnesso f all but the surviving victims and their families .

The US has no t unleashed an ato mic bo mb in the decades s ince the end o f Wo rld War II, altho ugh it has repeatedly threatened theiruse in Ko rea, in Vietnam and elsewhere. It nevertheless inco rpo rated annihilatio n o f no nco mbatants into the bo mbing pro grams thathave been integral to the success ive “co nventio nal wars ” that it has waged subsequently. With area bo mbing at the co re o f itss trategic agenda, US attacks o n cities and no nco mbatants wo uld run the gamut fro m firebo mbing, napalming, and clus ter bo mbingto the use o f chemical defo liants and depleted uranium weapo ns and bunker bus ter bo mbs in an ever expanding circle o f des tructio nwho se recent techno lo gical inno vatio ns center o n the use o f dro nes co ntro lling the skies and bringing terro r to inhabitants

belo w.19

Less no ted then and s ince were the sys tematic barbarities perpetrated byJapanese fo rces agains t res is tant villagers , tho ugh this pro duced thelarges t number o f the es timated ten to thirty millio n Chinese who lo s ttheir lives in the war, a number that far surpasses the half millio n o rmo re Japanese no nco mbatants who died at the hands o f US bo mbing,and may have exceeded So viet lo sses to Naz i invas io n co nventio nally

es timated at 20 millio n lives .22 In that and subsequent wars it wo uld bethe s ignature barbarities such as the Nanjing Massacre, the BataanDeath March, and the massacres at No gunri and My Lai rather than thequo tidian events that defined the sys tematic daily and ho urly killing,which wo uld attract sus tained attentio n, spark bitter co ntro versy, andshape his to rical memo ry.

Wo rld War II remains indelibly engraved in American memo ry as the“Go o d War” and indeed, in co nfro nting the war machines o f Naz iGermany and Imperial Japan, the United States played a critical ro le indefeating aggresso rs and o pening the way fo r a wave o f deco lo nizatio nthat swept the glo be in subsequent decades . It was also a war thatcatapulted the United States to glo bal supremacy, and es tablished theins titutio nal fo undatio ns fo r the glo bal pro jectio n o f American po wer inthe fo rm o f a vas t array o f insular territo ries and a netwo rk o fpermanent and ever gro wing military bases as well as unrivaled

techno lo gical supremacy and military po wer.23 Agains t these facto rs we turn to a co ns ideratio n o f the US firebo mbing and ato micbo mbing o f Japan in his to ry, memo ry, and co mmemo ratio n.

II T he Firebo mbing and At o mic Bo mbing o f Japanese Cit ies: Hist o ry, Memo ry, Cult ure, Co mmemo rat io n

A. The US o ccupatio n and the shaping o f Japanese and American memo ry o f the bo mbing

Bas ic decis io ns by the Japanese autho rities and by Washingto n and the US o ccupatio n autho rities shaped Japanese and Americanperceptio ns and memo ries o f the firebo mbing and ato mic bo mbing. Thro ugho ut the s ix mo nth perio d fro m the March 9 attack thatdes tro yed To kyo until Augus t 15, 1945, and abo ve all in the wake o f the US victo ry in Okinawa in mid-June 1945, a Japanese natio nthat was defeated in all but name co ntinued to spurn unco nditio nal surrender, eventually accepting the sacrif ice o f mo re than half amillio n Japanese subjects in Okinawa and Japan to secure a s ingle demand: the safety o f the empero r. In preserving Hiro hito o n thethro ne and cho o s ing to rule indirectly thro ugh the Japanese go vernment, the US did mo re than place severe co ns traints o n thedemo cratic revo lutio n that it so ught to launch under o ccupatio n auspices . It also assured that there wo uld be no s ignificant

Japanese debate o ver war respo ns ibility o r the nature o f the imperial o r imperial-military sys tem in general, and the decis io n tosacrif ice Okinawa and Japan’s cities with mass ive lo ss o f life in particular.

Fro m the o utset o f the o ccupatio n, the US impo sed tight censo rship with respect to the bo mbing, particularly the ato mic bo mbing.This included pro hibitio n o f publicatio n o f pho to graphic and artis tic images o f the effects o f the bo mbing o r criticism o f it. Indeed,under US censo rship, there wo uld be no Japanese public criticism o f either the firebo mbing o r the ato mic bo mbing. Whilefirebo mbing never emerged as a majo r subject o f American reflectio n o r self-criticism, the ato mic bo mbing did. Of particular interes tis co nservative and military criticism o f the ato mic bo mbing, including that o f Navy Secretary James Fo rres tal, and Gen. DwightEisenho wer, Jo hn Fo s ter Dulles and a range o f Chris tian thinkers such as Reinho ld Niebuhr. Thus Sec. o f War Henry Stimso n wo rried

abo ut the “gro wing feeling o f apprehens io n and misgiving as to the effect o f the ato mic bo mb even in o ur o wn co untry.”24

As Ian Buruma o bserves , “News o f the terrible co nsequences o f the ato m bo mb attacks o n Japan was deliberately withheld fro m theJapanese public by US military censo rs during the Allied o ccupatio n—even as they so ught to teach the natives the virtues o f a freepress . Casualty s tatis tics were suppressed. Film sho t by Japanese cameramen in Hiro shima and Nagasaki after the bo mbings wasco nfis cated. Hiroshima, the famo us acco unt written by Jo hn Hersey fo r The New Yorker, had a huge impact in the US, but was banned in

Nagasaki mushro o m clo ud. US Nat io nalArchives

Hiro shima aft er t he bo mb. US Nat io nal Archives

At o mic Bo mb survivo rs at Miyuki Bridge, Hiro shima,t wo kilo met ers fro m Gro und Zero . Aug. 6, 19 4 5.Pho t o by Mat sushige Yo shit o . Under US censo rship,Mat sushige’s pho t o s co uld no t be published unt il19 52 fo llo wing t he end o f t he o ccupat io n.

Bo dies o f peo ple t rapped and burned as t hey f ledt hro ugh a st reet during t he at t ack o n t he night o fMarch 9 -10 . Pho t o graph by Ishikawa Ko yo .

Japan. As [Jo hn]Do wer says : ‘Inthe lo calitiesthemselves ,suffering wasco mpo unded no tmerely by theunprecedentednature o f thecatas tro phe…butalso by the factthat publics truggle with thistraumaticexperience was

not permitted.’”25

The USo ccupatio nautho ritiesmaintained amo no po ly o n

scientif ic and medical info rmatio n abo ut the effects o f the ato mic bo mbthro ugh the wo rk o f the Ato mic Bo mb Casualty Co mmiss io n, which treated thedata gathered in s tudies o f hibakusha as privileged info rmatio n rather thanmaking the results available fo r the treatment o f victims o r pro viding financialo r medical suppo rt to aid victims . The US also s to o d by o fficial denial o f the

ravages asso ciated with radiatio n.26 Finally, no t o nly was the press tightlycenso red o n ato mic is sues , but literature and the arts were also subject torigo ro us co ntro l prio r.

This did no t meansuppress io n o f allinfo rmatio nabo ut the ato micbo mbing o r thefirebo mbings .Washingto nimmediatelyanno unced theato mic bo mb’sdes tructio n o fHiro shima andNagasaki andreleased theico nicpho to graphs o fthe mushro o mclo ud. It so o nmade availableimages o f theto tal devas tatio no f Hiro shima andNagasakidepicting the

ravages o f cities reduced to rubble and devo id o f human life, thereby demo ns trating the Pro methean po wer o f the victo r.

The US wo uld celebrate the po wer o f the bo mb in po werful visual s tatements o f the birth o f the nuclear era that wo uld be directed atthe entire wo rld o n Augus t 6 , o n Augus t 9 and in the decades that fo llo wed, bo th in o fficially co ntro lled pho to graphic images and inprivileged repo rtage, no tably that o f New Yo rk Times science repo rter William R. Laurence. What was banned under the o ccupatio nwere clo se-up images o f victims whether o f the firebo mbing o r the ato mic bo mbing captured o n film by Japanese pho to graphers ,that is , the human face o f the ato mic ho lo caus t.

The Japanese autho rities had reaso ns o f their o wn fo r highlightingato mic bo mb imagery while suppress ing imagery o f the firebo mbing.They include the fact that the do minant victimizatio n narrative waspreferable to having to engage war is sues centered o n Japaneseaggress io n and war atro cities . Mo reo ver, Japanese autho rities preferredto emphas ize the ato mic bo mb o ver the fire bo mbing fo r at leas t tworeaso ns . Firs t, it sugges ted that there was little that Japaneseautho rities o r any natio n co uld have do ne in the face o f sucho verwhelming techno lo gical po wer. The firebo mbing, by co ntras t raisedunco mfo rtable is sues abo ut the go vernment’s decis io n to perpetuatethe war thro ugh s ix mo nths o f punishing bo mbing with no alternativeexcept defeat. Seco nd, as Cary Karacas has argued, Japan’s bo mbing o fCho ngqing and o ther Chinese cities , including the use o f Unit 731’s bio -

weapo ns , raised unco mfo rtable ques tio ns abo ut its o wn bo mbing.27

B. Firebo mbing and ato mic bo mbing in Japanese literature and art

The ato mic bo mb experience gave rise to an o utpo uring o f Japanese(and later internatio nal) literary and artis tic respo nses that rank amo ngthe o uts tanding cultural achievements o f the twentieth century extendingacro ss multiple genres and giving rise to a literary genre o f Genbaku

bungaku o r ato mic-bo mb literature. These include haiku, tanka and linked po etry, sho rt s to ries , no vellas and children’s s to ries ,

Grave o f t he Firef lies

dramas fo r tv and s tage, manga, film, animatio n, memo irs , diaries , bio graphies and auto bio graphies , his to rical and jo urnalis ticacco unts , pho to graphs and pho to graphic essays , murals , paintings , and drawings . While many o f the s ignature wo rks are bysurvivo rs , o thers co ns titute literary and artis tic respo nses by a range o f writers and artis ts , Japanese, American and internatio nal,

who have respo nded to the bo mb and the plight o f the victims in the decades s ince the bo mbing.28 Amo ng the autho rs , artis ts ,pho to graphers , filmmakers , anime and manga artis ts are many o f Japan’s mo s t eminent literary and artis tic lights . A partial lis two uld include Kurihara Sadako and To ge Sankichi (po ets ), Ibuse Masuji, Oe Kenzaburo and Hayashi Kyo ko (no velis ts ), NakazawaKeiji (manga artis t), Maruki Iri and To shi (painters ), Kuro sawa Akira and Miyazaki Hayao (film directo rs ), Matsushige To shio ,Yamahata Yo suke, Fukushima Kikujiro and Do mo n Ken (pho to graphers ), and Nagai Takashi (phys ician). And amo ng internatio nalartis ts : Allen Ginsberg (po et), Stanley Kramer (film directo r), Jo hn Hersey (writer), Marguerite Duras (writer), Ro bert Lifto n(psychiatris t), and Alain Resnais (film directo r). No less impo rtant, and no less vivid and impo rtant, than these literary, artis tic andscho larly co ntributio ns are the wo rds and images pro vided by children and citizen hibakusha inscribing their perso nal experiences o f

the bo mb, mo s t famo us ly Unforgettable Fire: Pictures Drawn by Atomic Bomb Survivors.29 This literary and artis tic o utpo uring perhapshas no parallel in the range and emo tio nal depth o f the respo nses to a twentieth century his to rical event. Indeed, viewedco llectively, they co ns titute amo ng the mo s t impo rtant co ntributio ns to peace tho ught thro ugh the arts in human his to ry. If we livein an era that may be called the Nuclear Age, the literary, artis tic and citizen representatio ns o f the bo mb and the hibakushaexperience co ns titute amo ng humanities ’ mo s t precio us creative achievements , o nes that o pen the path to an epo ch o f peace andhuman fulfillment rather than the war and des tructio n that many have seen as the do minant legacy o f the lo ng twentieth century.

Here I wish to po se a diff icult ques tio n fo r which I have no co nfident answer. We have no ted that the cumulative death and injuryto lls as well as the des tructio n o f the built enviro nment fro m area bo mbing in Euro pe and Japan exceeded tho se o f the ato micbo mbing. Mo reo ver, area bo mbing no t o nly preceded the ato mic bo mbing but came to be legitimized in the sense o f being subject tono s ignificant internatio nal legal challenges as were, fo r example, the use o f fo rced labo r o r the sexual s laves o f the Japanesemilitary kno wn as the co mfo rt wo men. And, abo ve all this became a co re element o f the American military in each o f the majo r warsfo ught in the s ix decades s ince Wo rld War II. Yet, altho ugh jo urnalis ts , pho to graphers and his to rians reco rded the events , andaltho ugh the US Strategic Bo mbing Survey interviewed survivo rs o f the firebo mbing, when we turn to literature and the arts in Japanand internatio nally, including the United States , these cataclysmic events have barely been no ted in the decades s ince 1945.

Amo ng no table exceptio ns to the literary and artis tic s ilencing o f the firebo mbing, perhaps bes t kno wn in bo th Japan and the UnitedStates is Grave o f the Fireflies (Ho taru no haka), No saka Akiyuki’s semi-auto bio graphical no vel made into a success ful 1988 filmdirected by Takahata Isao and beautifully animated by Studio Ghibli. Set in Ko be, it reco rds the terrifying bo mbing thro ugh the eyeso f 14-year o ld Seita and his 4-year o ld s is ter Setsuko , who lo se their mo ther in the flames and themselves die in po verty in the

aftermath o f Japan’s surrender.30 The surviving victims o f firebo mbing do ubtless reco rded their experiences in diaries , po ems andmemo irs . Yet nearly all o f these respo nses to the firebo mbing remain co nfined to the private secto r, the individuals and families o ftheir creato rs .

Ho w are we to co mprehend the fact that while 66 Japanesecities were leveled by firebo mbing, taking the lives o f severalhundred tho usand Japanese, the experience generatedrelatively little literature o r art, and that little, with fewexceptio ns , was neither no ted no r lo ng remembered co mparedto the mo numental pro ductio n derived fro m the Hiro shima andNagasaki experience? Ho w explain the difference despite thefact that censo rship applied to bo th the literature and art o fthe firebo mbing and the ato mic bo mbing during theo ccupatio n? Clearly multiple facto rs were and are at wo rk:

The United States , in subs tantiating its claim as the unrivaled superpo wer, highlighted the ato mic bo mb as the critical ingredient inJapan’s surrender. It is wo rth recalling ho wever, that s ix mo nths o f firebo mbing had laid was te to Japan and revealed the inability todefend the skies , but it had failed to fo rce surrender. The ato mic bo mbs further underlined the nature o f American po wer, but it isimpo rtant to no te what the o fficial US narrative elides : the So viet invas io n o f Manchuria o n Augus t 8 , o ne day befo re Nagasaki, wascritical to the Japanese surrender calculus .

With mo re than 200 ,000 dead by the end o f 1945 in Hiro shima and Nagasaki, and with many mo re dying in subsequent years ,nuclear weapo ns emerged as the no npareil weapo n o f mass des tructio n, their po wer magnified by the mys tique o f radiatio n. Thistheme wo uld recur in fantasy and nightmare thro ugho ut the po s twar, shaping the Japanese and American imaginatio n, and indeedthe glo bal imaginary. It wo uld shape feature film representatio ns o f the bo mb as well as the fantas ies played o ut in the press , as in

the fears o f a nuclear attack o n New Yo rk City, and in literature and art.31 Here Dr. Strangelo ve is perhaps the s ignature internatio nalcreatio n, but equally impo rtant are the fantas ies played o ut in the press , as in the fears o f a nuclear attack o n New Yo rk City. Inadditio n, the high degree o f US censo rship and dis info rmatio n, including o fficial denial o f the effects o f radiatio n, had the effect o ffo cus ing attentio n o n unders tanding a weapo n that co ntinued to kill with the passage o f time. The fact that the So viet-Americanco nflict, the defining geo po litical clash o f the po s twar era, was o rganized aro und nuclear rivalry had the effect o f drawing furtherattentio n to nuclear is sues : here bo th the Pentago n and the wo rld peace mo vement were equally fixated o n ato mic weapo ns despitethe fact co nventio nal bo mbing was the everyday reality o f all subsequent wars fo ught by the United States and o thers .

Subsequent develo pments po werfully drew attentio n to the ato mic bo mb. The Lucky Drago n #5 Incident o f 1954, resulting in theirradiatio n o f 23 Japanese fishermen (and the death o f o ne) caught in the US hydro gen bo mb tes t at Bikini, ignited the wo rld anti-

nuclear mo vement with Japan as the epicenter o f pro tes t fro m that time fo rward.32 The fo llo wing year, 1955, the Hiro shima Memo rialMuseum was es tablished, giving the anti-nuclear mo vement a highly vis ible shrine backed by the Hiro shima and Japanesego vernments . Hiro shima wo uld beco me a mecca fo r Japanese and internatio nal vis ito rs as a s ite fo r peace educatio n and a symbo lo f peace as well as o f Japanese suffering. (Nagasaki wo uld build its o wn memo rial museum, but bo th Japanese and internatio nalattentio n have always fo cused o n Hiro shima).

The Japanese go vernment also underlined the dis tinctio n between nuclear and firebo mbing survivo rs no t o nly in its lavish fundingfo r the museums in the two cities , but by making available funds to pro vide medical care fo r the victims o f the ato mic bo mbing. It iswo rth underlining the fact that it was the Japanese go vernment and no t the US go vernment that pro vided, and co ntinues to pro vide,subs tantial funds fo r the hibakusha. The larger numbers o f surviving victims o f firebo mbing never received either reco gnitio n o ro fficial suppo rt fro m natio nal o r lo cal go vernment fo r medical care o r pro perty lo sses , and they certainly never drew either Japaneseo r internatio nal attentio n. In sho rt, while the surviving victims o f the ato mic bo mb were a co ntinuing reminder to Japanese o f theirvictimizatio n, bo mb survivo rs in o ther cities were expected to embrace the fo rward lo o king natio nal agenda o f reco ns tructio n tobuild Japan again into an indus trial po wer that wo uld rise no t under the banner o f the military but under permanent US militaryo ccupatio n, a US nuclear umbrella and a peace co ns titutio n.

With the end o f the o ccupatio n, there was a flo urishing o f ato mic literature and art, including no vels , po etry, visual arts andpho to graphy that had previo us ly been censo red and no w fo und a ready receptio n amo ng publishers and readers , co nveying with

Fro m “Fire”, Seco nd o f T he Hiro shimaPanels by Maruki Iri and T o shi

sens itivity, nuance and patho s the nature o f experiences that had the capacity to deeply mo ve Japanese and internatio nal readersand viewers , o ften by unders tatement, o r even s ilence. Two examples may illus trate the citizen literary and do cumentary respo nse.

To the Lo s t33

Yamada Kazuko

When lo quats blo o m

When peach blo sso ms in the peach mo untain blo o m

When almo nds are as big as the tip o f the little finger

My bo ys

Please co me.

Nagai Kayano (5 at the time o f bo mbing, recalled)

My bro ther and I were in the mo untain ho use in Ko ba. My mo ther came fro m Nagasaki with clo thes .

“Mo m, did yo u bring Kaya-chan’s to o ?” I asked right away. My mo ther said, “yes . I bro ught lo ts o f Kaya-chan’s clo thes , to o ,” ands tro ked my head.

This was the las t time that she s tro ked me.

My mo ther said, “When there’s no air raid next, co me do wn to Nagasaki again, o kay?” And she left right away in a great hurry.34

In much o f the literature and memo ir, as in the film, anime, pho to graphy and painting, there is an immediacy o f the humanexperience that transcends argument and debate and co nveys po werful human emo tio ns including deep sympathy fo r victims , manyo f them wo men and children. In so me can also be fo und a sense, rarely explicitly s tated, o f the inhumanity o f the assailant.

C. Firebo mbing and ato mic bo mbing in Japanese and American museums,mo numents and memo ry

Natio nal and lo cal s tate go vernments everywhere wield impo rtant co mmemo rativepo wers as o ne weapo n in the natio nalis t arsenal thro ugh their ability to build andfinance museums and mo numents that guard public memo ry o f critical his to ricalevents , yet their po licies may also beco me the lo cus o f public co ntro versy.

The s to ry line here clo sely parallels that o f literature and the arts . The high pro fileato mic bo mb memo rial museums at Hiro shima and Nagasaki—funded initiallyprimarily by prefectural and city go vernments but subsequently lavishly suppo rtedby To kyo in building two eno rmo us natio nal memo rial s ites—has pro duced amajo r, perhaps THE majo r, s ite o f natio nal co mmemo ratio n, mo urning, and publiceducatio n in Japan. Indeed, no t o nly are the memo rial museums (no tablyHiro shima) amo ng the mo s t impo rtant s ites o f Japan’s ubiquito us scho o leducatio n trips , they are also arguably the s ingle larges t internatio nal, particularlyAmerican, magnet fo r to uris ts . See here and here. A 1994 Ato mic Bo mb Survivo rs ’Ass is tance Act set in mo tio n the creatio n o f natio nal memo rials , which o pened o nAugus t 1, 2002 in Hiro shima and July 2003 in Nagasaki. Its miss io n: “To pray fo rpeace and pay tribute to the survivo rs . To co llect and pro vide A-bo mb-relatedinfo rmatio n and materials , such as memo irs o f the A-bo mbing”. This meant that, atleas t until recently, bo th memo rial museums pro vided no co ntextualizatio n o f thebo mbing in light o f the his to ry o f Japanese co lo nialism, the invas io n o f China andSo utheas t As ia, o r ques tio ns o f war atro cities such as the Nanjing Massacre o r theco mfo rt wo men. Their miss io n was unders to o d to be that o f giving vo ice toJapanese victims o f the ato mic bo mbing. To ut co urt. In recent years , bo th have

intro duced materials o n Japan during the fifteen-year war, with Nagasaki pro viding a far mo re extens ive and deeper intro ductio n tothe nature o f Japanese co lo nialism and war at the expense o f As ian peo ple.

What then o f the treatment o f co mmemo ratio n o f the firebo mbing that des tro yed 66 Japanese cities in 1945? Firs t, it is no tablethat there is no natio nal o r even prefectural s ite o f co mmemo ratio n o f the firebo mbing. Natio nal and mo s t lo cal go vernments—impo rtant exceptio ns include the co o peratio n o f lo cal go vernments in Nago ya and Osaka with citizens gro ups co mmemo rating thebo mbing—have cho sen no t to memo rialize the hundreds o f tho usands who died and were injured, and the millio ns who lo s t their

ho mes and were fo rced to evacuate as a result o f fire bo mbing35. In s triking co ntras t to Hiro shima and Nagasaki, lo cal and natio nalgo vernments have trained their eyes o n the future, rebuilding the cities while do ing their bes t to fo rget the trauma o f firebo mbingand denying o fficial respo ns ibility fo r the victims . To my kno wledge, there is no s ingle s tate-spo nso red mo nument to the victims o fthe firebo mbing preserved fo r reflectio n o r educatio n in ways co mparable to Hiro shima’s ato mic do me, which was embraced no t o nly

by Hiro shima and To kyo , but was also des ignated as a Wo rld Heritage s ite.36

Nevertheless , firebo mbing has no t entirely disappeared do wn the memo ry ho le. The mo s t vis ible s ite, especially fo r internatio nalresearchers and vis ito rs , The To kyo Air Raid and War Damages Reso urces Center is an invaluable educatio n and research centerdo cumenting and exhibiting the firebo mbing. Opened in 2002 and expanded in 2007, it was built in the absence o f direct financial o rlo gis tical suppo rt by the To kyo autho rities . But appro ximately ten o thers , no tably Peace Aichi and Peace Osaka, all spearheaded bycitizens gro ups , make impo rtant co ntributio ns to co mmemo ratio n and the co ntinued viability o f peace tho ught. While all o f theseare far mo re mo des t than the Hiro shima and Nagasaki memo rials , the To kyo Center is a subs tantial reso urce, and it is free o fgo vernment co ntro ls . This means in particular that, under the leadership o f writer-researcher peace activis t Sao to me Katsumo to , it

can examine critically no t o nly the US bo mbing but also the Japanese and American war effo rts .37 It canno t, ho wever, gain the cacheto f the Hiro shima and Nagasaki Centers with their hundreds o f tho usands o f Japanese and internatio nal vis ito rs and high natio naland internatio nal pro file.

Nevertheless , the reso urce base fo r the s tudy o f the firebo mbing o f Japan, particularly o f To kyo , is gro wing. Bret Fisk and CaryKaracas have es tablished Japan Air Raids .o rg, an impo rtant bilingual his to rical archive including a range o f do cuments and art

Nihei Haruyo , eight years o ld at t he t ime o f t heT o kyo f irebo mbing, sho ws t he sit e o f t he bo mbingsat t he T o kyo Air-Raid Cent er (Pho t o graph Sat o koNo rimat su)

Lunchbo x o f junio r high scho o l st udent OrimenShigeru. (Hiro shima Peace Memo rial Museum)

pertaining to the US air raids agains t Japan including a nearly co mplete set o f the 108 repo rts o f the US Strategic Bo mbing Survey;the 5 vo lume set o f the Tokyo Daikushu–Sensaishi(“Great To kyo Air Raid—War Damage Do cumentatio n”), which co nveys the vo ices o fsurvivo rs and much mo re.

Co mpariso n with the Natio nal Sho wa Memo rial Museum(Sho wakan) is ins tructive. Where the To kyo Center do cuments thedisas ters suffered by To kyo ’s citizens in the firebo mbing thatdes tro yed the city (but no t the Imperial Palace), the Sho wakandisplays the natio n’s lo yal subjects go ing abo ut their wo rk,suppo rting the tro o ps , engaging in neighbo rho o d fire-fighting drills ,rais ing their children and wo rking to suppo rt families and the war.Calm reigns as every citizen, child, mo ther, so ldier, grandparentfo llo ws his o r her ass ignment to the letter. No t a s ingle exhibit (aso f 2011) co nveys a sense o f the terro r and des tructio n o f thebo mbing o r, indeed, any s ign o f diso rder.

The result is that the majo r natio nal s ites o f war memo ry availableto To kyo ’s citizens and vis ito rs are the Yasukuni Shrine and theSho wakan, each in its way a mo nument to the Empero r, to Shintonatio nalism, and the war effo rt, and each eliding the trauma to whichcitizens o f To kyo and 66 o ther Japanese cities were subjected in thefinal mo nths o f the war.

One museum spo nso red by the To kyo Metro po litan Go vernmentdo es co ntain an exhibit o n the bo mbing o n its s ixth flo o r. That is theEdo -To kyo Museum in Sumida Ward at Ryo go ku Statio n which, likeYasukuni and the Sho wakan, co nveys little sense o f terro r o rdes tructio n that the bo mbing wro ught.

Viewed fro m ano ther angle, thro ugh o fficial Japan’s suppress ing o r do wnplaying the firebo mbing, America’s nuclear supremacypro vides reassurance fo r Japanese leaders co mmitted to maintaining Japan’s subo rdinate po s itio n in the US-Japan alliance inperpetuity: the US nuclear umbrella is the mo s t po werful guarantee o f Japan’s security. Thus , in drawing attentio n to the ato micbo mb, Japanese leaders are s imultaneo us ly reaffirming their co re diplo matic cho ice in the co ntempo rary era.

The is sues o f Japanese memo ry and s ilence o n the bo mb invites co mpariso n with the co ntro versy in the United States o ver theSmithso nian exhibitio n o n the fiftieth anniversary o f Japan’s surrender in 1995. A furo r aro se when his to rians and museum s taffcrafted an exhibitio n that included reco gnitio n o f the human to ll o f the bo mb. The co ntro versy pivo ted aro und a s ingle po werfulimage.

Orimen Shigeru’s carbo nized lunchbo x was amo ng the artifactsfo und and co llected at the Hiro shima Memo rial Museum. His mo therfo und the uneaten lunchbo x with his bo dy o n Augus t 9 after threedays o f searching.

When the exhibito rs pro po sed to include the lunchbo x at theSmithso nian, the is sue went viral, culminating in a unanimo usSenate reso lutio n which co ndemned the exhibit in its entirety. Theexhibitio n eventually went fo rward with a s ingle item: The Eno la Gay,the B-29 that had dro pped the bo mb o n Hiro shima. The lunchbo x hadthe symbo lic capacity to undermine the natio nal narrative o f

patrio tism, po wer and ho no r by calling to mind the bo mb’s victims .38

The result illus trated the immense diff iculty Americans have lo ngfaced, and co ntinue to face, in finding an appro priate framewo rk fo rcelebrating the mo ment that bro ught the United States to thepinnacle o f its po wer.

Many Americans share with the Japanese peo ple, and with peo plethro ugho ut much o f the wo rld, deep sympathy fo r the victims o f theato mic bo mb. Caro lyn Mavo r pro vides a co mpelling example o f thatempathetic unders tanding in her intro ducto ry essay to elin o ’Haras lavick’s Bomb After Bomb: A Violent Cartography (pp. 20-21)

I do no t unders tand. I canno t co mprehend the fact that thefamed s ilver mo ns ter plane dro pped Little Boy o n little bo ys

and little girls , like the beautiful two -year-o ld Sadako Sasaki, who wo uld beco me the inspiratio nal paper-crane-fo lding, speed running, kimo no -wearing, peace-lo ving teenager who finally succumbed to her radiatio n-po iso ning atage fo urteen. Obscene is the fact that the pilo t o f the plane, Paul Tibbets , had the name o f his mo ther, Eno la Gay,painted o n the no se o f the plane, jus t days befo re the miss io n. Ho w co uld a plane named fo r o ne’s mo ther kill somany mo thers and children?

We reflect o n the fact that there is no Sadako o f the firebo mbing o f Japanese cities , no carbo nized lunchbo x relic kno wn to thewo rld, o r even to Japanese children. Yet there was precisely the killing o f myriad mo thers and children in tho se no t quite fo rgo ttenraids . We need to expand the canvas o f o ur imaginatio n to enco mpass a wider range o f victims o f American bo mbing in this ando ther wars , jus t as Japanese need to set their experience as bo mb victims agains t the Chinese and As ia-Pacific victims o f their warand co lo nialism. No r sho uld American respo ns ibility fo r its bo mb victims end with the reco very o f memo ry. It requires a sens ibilityembo died in o fficial apo lo gy and reparatio ns fo r victims , and a co nscio usness embo died in public mo numents and natio nal militarypo licies that is fundamentally at o dds with American celebratio ns o f its wars .

Ref lect io n

This article has so ught to unders tand the po litical dynamics that lie behind the differential treatment o f the firebo mbing and ato micbo mbing o f Japan in Japan and the United States , events that bro ught disas ter to the Japanese natio n, but also bro ught to an end abitter war and paved the way fo r the rebirth o f a Japan s tripped o f its empire (but no t its empero r) and prepared to embark o n the

rebuilding o f the natio n under American auspices . We have been equally interes ted in the human co nsequences o f the US targetingcivilian po pulatio ns fo r annihilatio n as a central s trategy o f its airpo wer fro m late 1944 and the nature o f subsequent ways o f war.While the ato mic bo mb has o vershado wed the firebo mbing in mo s t realms in the nearly seven decades s ince 1945, no tably as amajo r facto r in assess ing US-So viet co nflict and explaining the s tructure o f a “Co ld War” in wo rld po litics , we have sho wn no t o nlythat the firebo mbing to o k a greater cumulative to ll in human life than the ato mic bo mbs , but impo rtantly that it became the co re o fUS bo mbing s trategy fro m that time fo rward.

We can view this fro m ano ther angle. It appears that in the squaring o ff o f the two superpo wers , mutual targeting with ato micweapo ns was the centerpiece o f direct co nflict, while pro xy fights , as in Ko rea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanis tan, were fo ught withbo mbs ranging fro m firebo mbs to clus ter bo mbs to defo liants . The dro ne o pens a new page in this his to ry o f s tate terro r. In each o fthese, the United States essentially mo no po lized the skies in the dual sense that it alo ne carried o ut mass ive bo mbing, and its o wnho meland, and even its military bases in the US and thro ugho ut the wo rld, were never bo mbed.

This wo uld begin to change in the las t decade, culminating in the 9 .11 attack o n the Wo rld Trade Center and the Pentago n, ins tantlyshredding the image o f US invulnerability to fo reign attack sho rt o f nuclear attack, and giving rise to a language o f weapo ns o fmass des tructio n and terro rism. It was a language that elided s tate terro rism, no tably the sys tematic killing o f civilian po pulatio nsthat was a hallmark o f US warfare fro m 1944 to the present, while fo cus ing attentio n o n no n-s tate acto rs such as al-Qaeda. There isa seco nd majo r change in the internatio nal landscape o f military co nflict. That is the mo s t impo rtant techno lo gical change o f thepo s twar era: the use by (abo ve all) the United States o f dro nes to map and bo mb o n a wo rld s cale. Each o f these inflects abo ve allthe po ss ibilities o f bo mbing independent o f nuclear weapo ns .

In drawing attentio n to US bo mbing s trategies deplo ying “co nventio nal weapo ns” while keeping nuclear weapo ns in reserve s ince1945, the po int is no t to deny the critical impo rtance o f the latter in shaping the glo bal balance o f po wer/balance o f terro r. Far fro mit. It is , ho wever, to sugges t new perspectives o n o ur nuclear age and the nature o f warfare in the lo ng twentieth century and into thenew millennium.

This text is s lightly mo dified fro m a chapter that appeared in Kinnia Yau Shuk-ting, ed., Natural Disas ter and Reco ns tructio n in As ianEco no mies . A Glo bal Synthes is o f Shared Experiences (Lo ndo n: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

Recommended Citation: Mark Selden, "Bombs Bursting in Air: State and citizen responses to the US firebombing and Atomic bombing of Japan,"The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 12, Issue 3, No.4, January 20, 2014.

Mark Selden is a Senior Research Associate in the East Asia Program at Cornell University and a coordinator of the Asia-Pacific Journal. Hisbooks include The Atomic Bomb: Voices From Hiroshima and Nagasaki (with Kyoko Selden), China, Eas t As ia and the Glo bal Eco no my:Regio nal and his to rical perspectives (with Takeshi Hamashita and Linda Grove), The Resurgence o f Eas t As ia: 500 , 150 and 50 YearPerspectives (with Giovanni Arrighi and Takeshi Hamashita), and War and State Terro rism: The United States , Japan, and the As ia-Pacificin the Lo ng Twentieth Century (with Alvin So); Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resistance (with Elizabeth Perry). His homepage iswww.markselden.info/.

Relat ed art icles

• Bret Fisk and Cary Karacas , The Firebo mbing o f To kyo and Its Legacy: Intro ductio n

No t es

1 I am grateful fo r critical respo nses to earlier drafts o f this paper fro m Jo hn Gittings , Cary Karacas and Sato ko No rimatsu.

2 A small number o f wo rks have pro blematized the go o d war narrative by drawing attentio n to US atro cities in the As ia-Pacific War,typically centering o n the to rture, killing and desecratio n o f captured Japanese so ldiers . These include Peter Schrijvers , The GI WarAgainst Japan. American Soldiers in Asia and the Pacific During World War II (New Yo rk: NYU Press , 2002) and Jo hn Do wer, War WithoutMercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New Yo rk: Pantheo n, 1986). Two recent wo rks clo sely assess the bo mbing o f no nco mbatantsin bo th Japan and Germany, and the ravaging o f nature and so ciety as a result o f s trategic bo mbing that has been igno red in mucho f the literature. A. C. Grayling, Among the Dead Cities: The history and moral legacy of the WW II bombing of civilians in Germany and Japan(New Yo rk: Walker & Co mpany, 2006), pro vides a tho ro ughgo ing assessment o f US and British s trategic bo mbing (including ato micbo mbing) thro ugh the lens o f ethics and internatio nal law. See also Michael Bess , in Choices Under Fire. Moral Dimensions of World WarII (New Yo rk: Kno pf, 2006), pp. 88-110 .

3 Grayling, Among the Dead Cities, pp. 90-91.

4 Michael Sherry, “The United States and Strategic Bo mbing: Fro m Pro phecy to Memo ry,” in Yuki Tanaka and Marilyn B. Yo ung, eds .,Bombing Civilians: A twentieth century history (New Yo rk: The New Press , 2009), pp. 175-90; Cary Karacas , “Imagining Air Raids o nTo kyo , 1930-1945,” paper presented at the Asso ciatio n fo r As ian Studies annual meeting, Bo s to n, March 23, 2007. Sherry traceso ther pro phecies o f nuclear bo mbing back to H.G. Wells 1913 no vel The Wo rld Set Free.

5 David Fedman and Cary Karacas . “A Carto graphic Fade to Black: Mapping the Des tructio n o f Urban Japan During Wo rld War II.”Journal of Historical Geography 36 , no . 3 (2012), pp. 306–28.

6 Ro bert Rho des , The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New Yo rk: Simo n & Schus ter, 1986), pp. 596-97; Wes ley Frank Craven and JamesLea Gate, The Pacific: Matterhorn to Nagasaki June 1944 to Augus t 1945. Vo l. 5, The Army Air Forces in World War II (Chicago : Univers ityo f Chicago Press , 1953; 1983 Office o f Air Fo rce His to ry imprint) pp. 609-13; E. Bartlett Kerr, Flames Over Tokyo (New Yo rk: Fine,1991), pp. 146-50; Barrett Tillman, Whirlwind. The Air War Against Japan, 1942-1945, (New Yo rk: Simo n & Schus ter, 2010) pp. 134-73;Kenneth P. Werrell, Blankets of Fire. U.S. Bombers over Japan during World War II (Washingto n: Smithso nian Ins titutio n Press , 1996) pp.150-93.

7 Sherry, Air Power, p. 276 . A detailed pho to graphic reco rd, including images o f s co res o f the dead, so me burnt to a crisp anddis to rted beyo nd reco gnitio n, o thers apparently serene in death, and o f acres o f the city flattened as if by an immense to rnado , isfo und in Ishikawa Ko yo , Tokyo daikushu no zenkiroku (Co mplete Reco rd o f the Great To kyo Air Attack) (To kyo , 1992); To kyo kushu okiro ku suru kai ed., Tokyo daikushu no kiroku (Reco rd o f the Great To kyo Air Attack) (To kyo : Sanseido , 1982), and Dokyumento: Tokyodaikushu (Do cument: The Great To kyo Air Attack) (To kyo : Yukeisha, 1968). See the special is sue o f the As ia-Pacific Jo urnal editedby Bret Fisk and Cary Karacas , The Firebo mbing o f To kyo : Views fro m the Gro und, The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 3 No 1, January 17,2011.

8 Dokyumento. Toky o daikushu, pp. 168-73.

9 The Survey’s killed-to -injured ratio o f better than two to o ne was far higher than mo s t es timates fo r the ato mic bo mbing o fHiro shima and Nagasaki where killed and wo unded were appro ximately equal. If accurate, it is indicative o f the immense diff iculty inescaping fo r tho se near the center o f the To kyo fires to rm o n that windswept night. The Survey’s kill ratio has , ho wever, beenchallenged by Japanese researchers who fo und much higher kill ratio s at Hiro shima and Nagasaki, particularly when o ne includestho se who died o f bo mb injuries mo nths and years later. In my view, the SBS es timates bo th exaggerate the killed to injured ratioand unders tate the numbers killed in the To kyo raid. The Co mmittee fo r the Co mpilatio n o f Materials o n Damage Caused by theAto mic bo mbs in Hiro shima and Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Medical and Social Effects of the Atomic Bombing (NewYo rk: Bas ic Bo o ks , 1991), pp. 420-21; Cf. U.S. Strategic Bo mbing Survey, Field Report Covering Air Raid Protection and Allied SubjectsTokyo (n.p. 1946), pp. 3, 79. In co ntras t to the ato mic bo mbing o f Hiro shima and Nagasaki, which fo r fifty years has been the subjecto f intense research by Japanese, Americans and o thers , the mo s t s ignificant reco rds o f the To kyo attack are tho se co mpiled at thetime by Japanese po lice and fire departments . The U.S. Strategic Bo mbing Survey s tudy o f Effects of Air Attack on Urban Complex Tokyo-Kawasaki-Yokohama (n.p. 1947), p. 8 , o bserves that Japanese po lice es timates make no mentio n o f the numbers o f peo ple miss ing.In co ntras t to the mo nito ring o f ato mic bo mb deaths o ver the subsequent s ix decades , the To kyo casualty figures at bes t reco rddeaths and injuries within days o f the bo mbing at a time when the capacity o f the To kyo military and po lice to co mpile reco rds hadbeen o verwhelmed. Many mo re who died in the fo llo wing weeks and mo nths go unreco rded.

10 Barrett Tillman, Whirlwind, pp. 144-45 do cuments the s tartling lack o f preparedness o f Japanese cities to co pe with the bo mbing.“One survey no ted, ‘The co mmo n po rtable fire extinguisher o f the C2, carbo n tetrachlo ride, fo am, and water pump can types were no tused by Japanese firemen.’ In o ne o f the mo s t urbanized natio ns o n earth there were fo ur aerial ladders : three in To kyo and o ne inKyo to . But in 1945 o nly o ne o f To kyo ’s trucks was o peratio nal . . . Their 500-gpm pumps were therefo re largely useless .”

11 Karacas , “Imagining Air Raids ,” p. 22; Tho mas R. Havens , Valley of Darkness. The Japanese People and World War II, (New Yo rk: WWNo rto n 1978), p. 163, puts the number o f urban res idents evacuated to the co untrys ide o verall at 10 millio n. He es timates that350 ,000 s tudents fro m natio nal s cho o ls in grades three to s ix were evacuated in 1944 and 100 ,000 firs t and seco nd graders inearly 1945.

12 Jo hn W. Do wer, “Sensatio nal Rumo rs , Seditio us Graffiti, and the Nightmares o f the Tho ught Po lice,” in Japan in War and Peace (NewYo rk: The New Press , 1993), p. 117. United States Strategic Bo mbing Survey, Summary Report, Vo l I, pp. 16-20 .

13 Sahr Co nway-Lanz , Collateral Damage, p. 1.

14 Bret Fisk and Cary Karacas, The Firebombing of Tokyo and Its Legacy: Introduction, The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 3 No 1, January 17,2011. Fisk and Karacas draw on Overall Report of Damage Sustained by the Nation During the Pacific War, Eco no mic Stabilizatio n Agency,Planning Department, Office o f the Secretary General, 1949 , which may be viewed here.

15 The numbers killed, specifically the numbers o f no nco mbatants killed, in the Ko rean, Vietnam, Afghanis tan and Iraq wars weregreater, but each o f tho se wars extended o ver many years and bo mbing acco unted fo r o nly a po rtio n o f deaths .

16 It may be tempting to co ns ider whether the US willingness to kill such mass ive numbers o f Japanese civilians can be unders to o din terms o f racism, a sugges tio n so metimes applied to the ato mic bo mb. Such a view is , I believe, negated by US participatio n inarea bo mbing attacks at Dresden in 1944. Cf. Jo hn Do wer’s nuanced his to rical perspective o n war and racism in American tho ughtand praxis in War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New Yo rk: Pantheo n Bo o ks , 1986). In Year 501: The ConquestContinues (Bo s to n: So uth End Press , 1993) and many o ther wo rks , No am Cho msky emphas izes the co ntinuities in Wes ternideo lo gies that undergird practices leading to the annihilatio n o f entire po pulatio ns in the co urse o f co lo nial and expans io nis t warso ver half a millennium and mo re. Matthew Jo nes , After Hiroshima. The United States, Race and Nuclear Weapons in Asia, 1945-1965(Cambridge: Cambridge Univers ity Press , 2010). Jo nes emphas izes facto rs o f race, but no t racism in the Pacific War, the ato micbo mbing (there is no mentio n o f the firebo mbing) and the Ko rean and Vietnam Wars . He co ns iders US co ns ideratio n o f use o f theato mic bo mb in all o f these, no ting US plans to dro p an ato mic bo mb o n To kyo when mo re bo mbs became available by the end o fAugus t, if Japan had no t yet surrendered.

17 The mas ter wo rk o n the wo rld his to ry o f peace tho ught and activism is Jo hn Gittings , The Glorious Art of Peace. From the Iliad to Iraq(Oxfo rd: Oxfo rd Univers ity Press , 2012), chapters 5-7.

18 Geo ffrey Bes t, War and Law Since 1945. Oxfo rd: Clarendo n Press , 1994) pp. 180-81. Co uld be interpreted . . . but at the To kyoTrials , defense attempts to raise the is sue o f American firebo mbing and the ato mic bo mbing were ruled o ut by the co urt. It wasJapan that was o n trial.

19 Bo mbing wo uld also be extended fro m cities to the co untrys ide, as in the Agent Orange defo liatio n attacks that des tro yed thefo res t co ver and po iso ned res idents o f sprayed areas o f Vietnam, Lao s and Cambo dia. See Fred A. Wilco x, Scorched Earth. Legacies ofChemical Warfare in Vietnam (New Yo rk: Seven Sto ries Press , 2011).

20 elin o ’Hara s lavick, Bomb After Bomb. A Violent Cartography (Milan: Charta, 2007), p. 35.

21 Mark Selden, “Japanese and American War Atro cities , His to rical Memo ry and Reco nciliatio n: Wo rld War II to To day,” Japan Focus,April 15, 2008 . The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus co ntains s co res o f articles o n war, atro cities , and his to rical memo ry in the PacificWar .

22 An ins ightful dis cuss io n o f Japanese war crimes in the Pacific, lo cating the is sues within a co mparative co ntext o f atro citiesco mmitted by the US, Germany, and o ther po wers , is Yuki Tanaka’s Hidden Horrors: Japanese Crimes in World War II. Takashi Yo shida,The Making of the “Rape of Nanking”: History and Memory in Japan, China and the United States (Oxfo rd: Oxfo rd Univers ity Press , 2006)examines the unders tanding o f the Nanjing Massacre in each co untry.

23 Mark Selden, “String o f Pearls : The Archipelago o f Bases , Military Co lo nizatio n, and the Making o f the American Empire in thePacific,” International Journal of Okinawan Studies, Vo l 3 No 1, June 2012 (Special Is sue o n Is lands) pp. 45-62.

24 Jo nes , After Hiroshima, pp. 24-25. Peter Kuznick, “The Decis io n to Risk the Future: Harry Truman, the Ato mic Bo mb and theApo calyptic Narrative,” sugges ts that tho se who held that dro pping ato mic bo mbs o n Japan was mo rally repugnant and/o r militarilyunnecessary in the immediate po s twar perio d included Admiral William Leahy, General Dwight Eisenho wer, General Do uglasMacArthur, General Curtis LeMay, General Henry Arno ld, Brigadier General Bo nner Fellers , Admiral Ernes t King, General Carl Spaatz ,Admiral Ches ter Nimitz , and Admiral William “Bull” Halsey. The fact o f the matter, ho wever, is that, with the exceptio n o f a gro up o fato mic s cientis ts , these criticisms were raised o nly in the po s twar.

25 Ian Buruma, “Expect to be Lied to in Japan,” New York Review of Books, No vember 8 , 2012. See See also , Mo nica Braw, The AtomicBomb Suppressed. American Censorship in Occupied Japan (Armo nk: M.E. Sharpe, 1991). See the extens ive dis cuss io n o f censo rship inTakemae Eiji, Inside GHQ: The Allied Occupation of Japan and Its Legacy (Lo ndo n: Co ntinuum, 2002), espec. pp. 382-404, and Jo hn W.Do wer, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, espec. pp. 405-40.

26 William R. Laurence, U.S. Ato m Bo mb Site Belies To kyo Tales : Tes ts o n New Mexico Range Co nfirm that Blas t, and no t Radiatio nTo o k To ll, New York Times, September 12, 1945. Quo ting Gen. Les lie Gro ves , directo r o f the ato m bo mb pro ject and the po int man o nradiatio n denial: "The Japanese claim that peo ple died fro m radiatio n. If this is true, the number was very small."

27 Cary Karacas , “Place, Public Memo ry, and the To kyo Air Raids .” Geographical Review 100 , no . 4 (Octo ber 1, 2010), pp. 521–37.

28 So me useful biblio graphies o n English language so urces o n the literary and artis tic respo nses to the ato mic bo mb are Anno tatedBiblio graphy fo r Ato mic Bo mb Literature fro m the Also s Digital Library (2012) (literature, film, memo ir, biblio graphies ); To mo koNakamura, English Bo o ks o n Hiro shima and Nagasaki: An On-line Biblio graphy (2004) (Literature, memo irs , pho to graphy, researchrepo rts ); Amazo n lis ts 2,048 wo rks under Ato mic Bo mb. Kyo ko and Mark Selden, eds ., The Atomic Bomb: Voices From Hiroshima andNagasaki offers a range of literary, artistic, memoir and documentary wo rks (Armo nk: M.E. Sharpe, 1989). Nihon no genbaku bungaku(Japan’s ato mic bo mb literature), To kyo : Herupu Shuppansha, 1983) is the mo s t extens ive Japanese language co llectio n o f ato micliterature.

29 The To kyo firebo mbing also generated impo rtant artis t express io ns , no tably the eleven paintings o f “That Unfo rgettable Day--TheGreat To kyo Air Raid thro ugh Drawings .”, But in co ntras t to the Japanese and internatio nal attentio n that Unforgettable Fire received,the To kyo firebo mbing paintings have received little attentio n. Fisk and Caracas , “The Firebo mbing o f To kyo and Its Legacy:Intro ductio n."

30 A Yo uTube uplo ad o f the English language dubbed vers io n o f Grave o f the Fireflies .

31 Mick Bro derick and Ro bert Jaco bs bring the po int ho me po werfully in their wo rk o n the fantasy o f the ato mic bo mbing o f New Yo rkCity, bo rn in the New York Daily News o n Augus t 7, 1945 and co ntinuing in art and fantasy to the present. Nuke Yo rk, New Yo rk: NuclearHo lo caus t in the American Imaginatio n fro m Hiro shima to 9/11.

32 See particularly See Matashichi Oishi, The Day the Sun Rose in the West. Bikini, the Lucky Dragon and I (Ho no lulu: Univers ity o f HawaiiPress , 2011).

33 Trans . by Kyo ko Selden, The Atomic Bomb, p. 122.

34 Trans . by Kyo ko Selden, The Atomic Bomb, p. 222.

35 Cary Karacas kindly drew my attentio n to the ro le o f so me lo cal go vernments in wo rking with lo cal citizens to memo rialize bo mbvictims .

36 No t everyo ne welco med the Wo rld Heritage des ignatio n. Jung-Sun N. Han no tes that the Chinese go vernment expressedreservatio ns abo ut the des ignatio n o f the s ite: “During the Seco nd Wo rld War, it was the o ther As ian co untries and peo ples whosuffered the greates t lo ss in life and pro perty. But to day there are s till few

peo ple trying to deny this fact o f his to ry. As such being the case, if Hiro shima

no minatio n is appro ved to be included o n the Wo rld Heritage Lis t, even tho ugh

o n an exceptio nal bas is , it may be utilis ed fo r harmful purpo se by these few

peo ple. This will, o f co urse, no t be co nducive to the safeguarding o f wo rld peace

and security.” “Co nserving the Heritage o f Shame: War Remembrance and War-related Sites in

Co ntempo rary Japan,” Journal of Contemporary Asia, 42:3, 2012, p. 499.

37 See Reco nciliatio n and Peace thro ugh Remembering His to ry: Preserving the Memo ry o f the Great To kyo Air Raid 歴史の記憶」から和解と平和へ東京大空襲を語りついで trans . by Bret Fisk, The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 3 No 4, January 17, 2011.

38 Laura Hein and Mark Selden, eds . Living With the Bomb. American and Japanese Cultural Conflicts in the Nuclear Age (Armo nk: M.E.Sharpe, 1997), Intro ductio n, Geo rge H. Ro eder, Jr., “Making Things Vis ible: Learning fro m the Censo rs ,” and Yui Daizaburo , “BetweenPearl Harbo r and Hiro shima/Nagasaki: Natio nalism and Memo ry in Japan and the United States .”

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