Place: Japan
Claim to Fame: Kazuyo Funato - Survivor of the Tokyo Air Raid March 9, 10 1945

Koyo Ishikawa- Survivor and photographer of the Tokyo Air Raid March 9, 10 1945

This is the story of two survivors, total strangers, separated by age, yet united by one event. It was the Tokyo firebombing of March 9-10,1945.

On March 6, 1945 twelve-year-old Kazuyo Funato and her friends were on their way back to Tokyo. They had been living in the countryside for months, sent away for their own safety. Over three years have passed since Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour and the Japanese public was growing increasingly fearful of a confrontation with the Americans. Air attacks on mainland Japan were occurring more regularly. Now all Funato wanted was to get home. Just three days later, however, almost her entire family would be dead.

Funato had just finished elementary school and was returning to attend a graduation ceremony. She was one of 230,000 students, grades 3 to 6, who had been evacuated from Tokyo to the northeastern parts of Japan. Funato and her friends were all too happy to leave the harsh conditions in the countryside, where there wasn't enough food. Many were homesick but complaining wasn't an option. The children were told, "You may be safe here but your parents in Tokyo face increasing air raids and the battle may become tougher for the Japanese, but if everyone fights for the Emperor, we will eventually win. We will never lose."

Funato's parents ran a pharmacy. Her brothers were studying to be pharmacists. The family was finally together on the evening of March 9^th.

Just after midnight over 300 American B29 bombers came into sight. The planes flew very low and soon arrived over Tokyo's most populated neighbourhood. This was a mission unlike any other before. Armed with M69 incendiary napalm bombs, the pilots unleashed their cargo on the houses below. The bombs were specifically designed to destroy Japanese wooden buildings.

By 2:35 a.m. the bombs stopped falling. 100,000 Japanese civilians were dead or dying. Five members of Funato's family were among them: two brothers, two sisters and her grandmother. Miraculously, she survived.

Today Kazuyo Funato uses the pen and the paintbrush to keep the story of the air raid alive. She wrote her memoirs as well as a children's book about the evacuation and raid. Funato stands as a mother, grandmother and a living witness to one of the deadliest bombing attacks on civilians during the war.

Koyo Ishikawa was another survivor of the Tokyo air raid. However as everyone ran for cover, Ishikawa headed towards the destruction. The police photographer had a job to do. As the bombs dropped, he had to capture the images for an official record.

Ishikawa survived, as did his family. Yet in his diary, Ishikawa described his helplessness as he saw huge rivers of fire carrying away corpses and houses burning to the ground. After the bombing stopped, there were burnt bodies and rubble strewn everywhere. Ishikawa's photos were the only record of the immediate aftermath of the event.

However the public didn't get to see them until years after the war. Both the Japanese and American governments didn't want these pictures shown. In Japan,it wasn't good politics to show death, destruction, and defeat. In the U.S., only aerial images were shown. The Tokyo police and later the Americans ordered Ishikawa to hand over his negatives. He refused and instead buried them in his backyard.

In 1953, Ishikawa's photos were published in his book entitled Tokyo Daikushu Hiroku Shashinshu or "A confidential photo collection of the Great Tokyo Air Raid". He later published other collections of his photos and diaries.

Ishikawa retired from the police force in 1963 and died in 1989 at the age of 85.

The March 10th air raid over Tokyo was overshadowed by the atomic bomb blasts just five months later. Yet the raid killed more people in one night than the initial casualties of Hiroshima.

Today a museum and memorial stand at the epicenter of the attack. The Center of the Tokyo Raid and War Damages opened its doors on March 9, 2002. It houses artifacts, documents, and artwork, including paintings by Kazuyo Funato and photographs by Koyo Ishikawa. http://www.tokyo-sensai.net/english_page/index.html.