On the right is an eyewitness account of the devastation delivered to Tokyo as reported by the first Americans to enter that city following the Japanese capitulation some weeks earlier:
“Downtown Tokyo looks badly beaten. Along the Ginza, which is the Japanese Fifth Avenue, every other building is either burned to the ground or wrecked inside. A lot of the department stores and smart shops have English and French signs over their doors…Our official estimate of the bomb damage in Tokyo is 52 percent of the city.”
“The people of Tokyo are taking the arrival of the first few Americans with impeccable Japanese calm. Sometimes they turn and look at us twice, but they have shown no emotion toward us except a mild curiosity and occasional amusement…They are still proud and a little bit superior. They know they lost the war, but they are not apologizing for it.”
Click here to read about the humbled Japan.
Click here to read about August 28, 1945 – the day the American occupation began.
KEY WORDS: bomb damage in 1945 Tokyo,1st Americans in post-war Tokyo report the damage,life in post-war Tokyo witnessed 1945,Tokyo’s Ginza shopping district in ruins 1945,Tokyo’s Ginza shopping district reduced to ashes 1945
