Postwar Debate and Legal Dispute
In 2007, Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzō apologized in print, acknowledging Japan's bombing of Chinese cities beginning in 1938, killing civilians. He wrote that the Japanese government should have surrendered as soon as losing the war was inevitable, an action that would have prevented Tokyo from being firebombed in March 1945, as well as subsequent bombings of other cities. Thereafter, survivors banded together and unsuccessfully sued the Japanese government for compensation; however, efforts continue.
After the war, Japanese author Katsumoto Saotome, a survivor of the 10 March 1945 fire bombing, helped start a library about the raid in Koto Ward called the Center of the Tokyo Raid and War Damages. The library contains documents and literature about the raid plus survivor accounts collected by Saotome and the Association to Record the Tokyo Air Raid.
Read more about this topic: Bombing Of Tokyo
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