Fears of a march toward war
Print Edition
KATSUMOTO Saotome was 12 the night he ran for his life through a sea of flames as US bombers rained incendiary bombs down around him.
The US bombing on March 10, 1945, annihilated a wide swathe of northeastern Tokyo. An estimated 100,000 people were killed.
Now, as memories fade of how civilians suffered during World War II — Saotome blames Japan’s wartime leaders who thought of their citizens as “weeds” — the 82-year-old author fears Japan may be marching toward war again.
“I think we’re turning backward, down that road,” said Saotome, citing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s plans to change Japan’s war-renouncing constitution, his more muscular security stance and a State Secrets Act passed last year.
“Everyone thinks at first that it’s nothing, but more and more things accumulate, and then it’s repression. I worry about what happens to women and children in this situation. We have to talk about it, maybe that will put a brake on things.”
For Saotome and others of his age, the war stole their childhood.
In school, before being conscripted to work in factories, they learned that the “kamikaze” divine wind would annihilate Japan’s enemies. Should Japan lose, they would have to choose death over dishonor.
“On August 15, the day the war ended, we learned the Emperor would speak to us by radio. This was unheard of,” he said. “All I could think was that he was going to ask us all to die. Even a child knew by then that the divine wind wouldn’t save us.”
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