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Sky News
6 days ago
- General
- Sky News
'Bombs were falling everywhere': My grandmother and history's deadliest air raid
The shadow of Hiroshima and Nagasaki looms large over the brutal final months of the Second World War. An estimated 200,000 died after the US dropped two atomic bombs over three days, and less than a week later, Japan announced its surrender. While this week marks 80 years since the first and last use of nuclear weapons, the world has largely forgotten another Allied assault on Japan, considered to be history's deadliest air raid. On the night of 9 March 1945, the US Army Air Forces firebombed Tokyo with 1,665 tonnes of explosives. The bombs hit the most densely populated neighbourhoods in Tokyo's downtown and killed up to 100,000 civilians - more than the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. My grandmother Tomoko was among those who survived. 'We've got to run' Booming sirens woke them in the early hours, as they had done many times before. Well-practised, my 14-year-old grandmother, her mother Chii and little sister Takako gathered what they could and prepared to evacuate. "I was just scared, and we thought, we've got to run. "All I could carry were my schoolbooks and school uniform. We didn't have any food to take, and we didn't have rucksacks, so we wrapped everything we could in a furoshiki (traditional wrapping cloth). "We strapped makeshift helmets to our heads, made of a cushion and saucepan - and ran." As they got outside, terrifying streaks of fire filled the sky. Hundreds of B-29 bombers were dropping cluster munitions with napalm specially designed to stick to and destroy traditional Japanese homes made of wood and paper. "Everyone was running, and all around us, the bombs were falling. Everywhere you looked. If you were unlucky, the bombs would hit you and burn you alive. "But we were completely focused, we couldn't focus on anything around us, except running. There was no time to think. Mother just said 'run!'" All the local shelters were full, so they kept running. They desperately searched for space and eventually worked their way to the local train station, a 40-minute walk away. It was filled with hundreds of people when they got there, crammed from corner to corner. They were engulfed by darkness, broken by the flashes of light from flames and explosions outside as bombs made contact. "The station was on a lower ground level... above us was a burning furnace, so the noise was unbelievable. "In the moment, I was so scared, and as I was a child, I didn't really fully register what was happening. I was just holding on to my mother." Sunrise came, finally, and she made her way to the station entrance. What struck her first was the sheer lack of anything around her. "There was absolutely nothing left. Everything was burned to the ground. I think now how unbelievable it is that we survived." Walking down the firebombed streets was like entering the mouth of hell. "Lots of people were lying dead. All the people who had been living there, most of them had perished ... piles and piles of burnt bodies were heaped on both sides of the street. "My mother, my little sister and I held hands as we went for support. I had never seen so many dead people before, but I was so numb that I couldn't even feel scared. "When we finally made it back to where our house stood, there was just nothing. No house, no nothing. But my father survived, thankfully." Her father, Minoru, had stayed behind to pour buckets of water over the house to try and stop it from burning down. He was no match for the incendiary weapons. "There were bomb shelters nearby, so that's where he hid with our neighbours and he miraculously survived. There were lots of people who died within the shelter, but somehow, he survived." 'Once should be enough for war' Now 94 years old, Obachan, as I call her, has never really spoken about her experiences of the war to anyone. My mother Reiko, had never had a conversation with my grandmother about her experiences until very recently. Tomoko has never been a woman of many words, but in my childhood, I always found her silence on the subject of war at odds with how the grandparents of my British friends would tell tales of fighting or evacuation. If ever pushed further for details, she would say, "the past is there to be forgotten". This speaks to an often-shared experience for those who survived the war in Japan, that, barring a few notable exceptions, many are ashamed to talk of it. Whether it be about the suffering they experienced, or the fact that Japan lost. US air raids continued after Operation Meetinghouse on 9 March 1945, with Tokyo firebombed until Japan's surrender. It was a miracle Tomoko made it through those brutal days. But she survived and lived through the American occupation, seeing Japan's post-war reconstruction. She became a mother and later, a grandmother, moving to the UK. She has lived a life full of experiences that she could have only dreamt of as a terrified girl in 1945. The only difference between those that lost their lives and Tomoko is luck. Now, in a time where conflict seems as present as it did then, she tells me "once feels like it should be enough for war". "To kill someone is terrible, to be killed is terrible. Why do people have to wage wars? It should never happen again. "The thing is that people will never understand until they've experienced it themselves. To have your whole body burned to a crisp, to have everyone you know die, unless you've seen these things, people will never understand. "That's why people continue to wage wars, all the time. If you lost your parents, your siblings, everyone you loved, who do you think would want a war?"
Time of India
28-07-2025
- General
- Time of India
WWII vet who married at 100 in Normandy, plans Bar Mitzvah at 103 at the Pentagon; still chasing dreams 81 years after D-Day
Harold Terens , a 102-year-old World War II veteran from Florida, is preparing to celebrate his bar mitzvah at the Pentagon next year, a Jewish rite of passage he was denied as a child. The announcement came shortly after he marked his 102nd birthday surrounded by family and friends in Delray Beach. Harold Terens enlisted in the US Army Air Forces in 1942 and served as a radio repair technician for a P-47 Thunderbolt fighter squadron. Explore courses from Top Institutes in Please select course: Select a Course Category Healthcare Technology Design Thinking CXO Project Management Data Science Artificial Intelligence Data Analytics Degree healthcare Others Cybersecurity PGDM Management MCA Data Science Operations Management Digital Marketing Public Policy others Finance Product Management MBA Leadership Skills you'll gain: Financial Analysis in Healthcare Financial Management & Investing Strategic Management in Healthcare Process Design & Analysis Duration: 12 Weeks Indian School of Business Certificate Program in Healthcare Management Starts on Jun 13, 2024 Get Details On D-Day in 1944, he helped repair planes returning from France and later assisted in transporting freed prisoners of war from Normandy to England. In June 2024, he was honored by the French government during the 80th anniversary of the country's liberation from Nazi occupation. Bar Mitzvah at 103 Terens plans to hold the bar mitzvah ceremony at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., when he turns 103 next summer. Live Events Born to a religious mother from Poland and an anti-religious father from Russia, he was the second of two sons. His older brother was bar mitzvahed; Terens was not, due to a compromise between his parents. He shared this lifelong wish during a public event, where it was overheard by the rabbi of the Pentagon. The ceremony is now in the works, with around 80 friends and family members already on the guest list. As reported by the Associated Press, Terens said, 'That's my next bucket list. I am going to be bar mitzvahed in the Pentagon.' From D-Day to Normandy wedding In addition to his military service, Terens made headlines in 2024 when he returned to Normandy to marry his partner Jeanne Swerlin, then 96. The couple, both originally from New York, wed in Carentan-les-Marais, near the D-Day landing beaches. After the ceremony, they attended a state dinner hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron and former US President Joe Biden at the Élysée Palace. Terens, who has met five US presidents during his lifetime, attributes his longevity to keeping stress low and finding joy in life. 'I think I'm the richest guy in the world and I don't have any money in the bank,' he told The New York Post, adding, 'The best is yet to come.'
Fox News
26-07-2025
- General
- Fox News
WWII hero's remains finally coming home after 80-year mystery is solved through military dedication
Nearly eight decades after he disappeared in a World War II plane crash over Burma, the remains of a Pennsylvania airman have been identified, paving the way for the hero's long-awaited burial at Arlington National Cemetery. In the summer of 1943, U.S. Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Henry J. Carlin, a 27-year-old from Philadelphia, was among six crew members aboard a B-25C "Mitchell" bomber that went down during a low-altitude raid in Meiktila, Burma. Carlin's remains and those of three others on board were not recovered after the war, and they were declared missing in action. The other two surviving crew members were captured by Japanese forces, according to the report. It is unclear if they returned home. The four heroes' remains were buried in a common grave near Kyunpobin, Burma, without identification, and later recovered by the American Grave Registration Service in 1947. Witnesses only described them as being from an "American crash," complicating the identification process. The bodies, listed as "unknowns" in Honolulu's National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, were exhumed in 2022, after the Department of Defense approved the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency's (DPAA) disinterment request. To identify Carlin's remains, scientists from DPAA used dental, anthropological and radio isotope analysis. The Armed Forces Medical Examiner System also used mitochondrial DNA analysis to make a positive ID, which was confirmed April 16. Bringing closure to a mystery that spanned generations, Carlin's remains will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery in May 2026. Carlin's name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in the Philippines, along with the others missing from WWII, according to the DPAA. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for. Carlin served as a navigator and was a member of the 22nd Bombardment Squadron (Medium), 341st Bombardment Group (Medium), 10th Air Force.
New York Post
15-07-2025
- General
- New York Post
‘Nazi' Creek in this US state is getting a new name after 70 years — here's why
A one-mile stream in Alaska dubbed 'Nazi Creek' after it was reclaimed from the Axis Powers during World War II has finally been renamed after more than seven decades of debate. Kiska Island and Little Kiska at the far western end of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska were taken over by the Japanese military in June 1942, mere months after the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor 1,000 miles away. 4 Nazi Creek was originally named by US soldiers while using an alphanumeric grid system for their maps. Bettmann Archive Advertisement The occupation lasted a year. But it wasn't the Japanese who gave the creek its hotly contested name. Instead, American soldiers dubbed the stream 'Nazi Creek.' The title was 'arbitrarily applied to features' around the area by the US Army Air Forces for tactical reasons during the war, according to the Dictionary of Alaska Place Names. Even after World War II ended, the name remained at a federal level and was placed on an Army map in 1953 before Alaska joined the US six years later. Advertisement 4 Nazi Creek is about one mile long. Alaska's News Source At the time, the military used an alphanumeric grid system on its maps. The mile-long stream fell into the 'N' grid, and so Nazi Creek was born. Other natural features nearby were named under the same system, including places Moron Lake, Rat Lake, Jeff Cove, Robert Ridge and Magic Mountain, according to the Alaska Guide Company. Advertisement Some other spots like Auburn and Brunette Cove were also named by soldiers who just liked the titles because of the association with classic 'pin-up' girls, according to the website. 4 Soldiers named other nearby natural features including Moron Lake and Magic Mountain. Getty Images Renaming Nazi Creek was a two-year-long endeavor spearheaded by Alaska historian and map enthusiast Michael Livingston. The historian sought to establish new titles to reflect the Indigenous Aleutian Unangax̂ who originally resided in the area, he told KUCB last year. The proposed name was workshopped over time, but it stayed centered around 'Kangchix̂,' the island's Unangax̂ name, which translates to 'gizzard' in English. Advertisement Finally, the creek's name will be changed to 'Kaxchim Chiĝanaa,' which translates to 'creek or river belonging to gizzard island.' Livingston also lumped in a campaign to rename nearby 'Nip Hill' — an ethnic slur against Japanese people. Like the creek, its name was changed to 'Kaxchim Qayaa,' or 'gizzard hill.' 'It wasn't appropriate in the 1940s, and it's certainly still not appropriate in the 2020s,' he told the outlet. During the spring, the Alaska Historical Commission voted unanimously to change the names, which gave the effort more momentum. The US Board on Geographic Names has since approved the name changes, making way for the federal government to remove Nazi Creek and Nip Hill from databases, according to the New York Times. 4 The new names were inspired by the Aleutian name for the island, 'Kangchix̂.' Getty Images The roughly 880 Unangax̂ residents who lived on the island when it was raided by the Japanese were evacuated and placed into internment camps by the United States. Advertisement Roughly 80 died of disease while festering in the miserable conditions, according to 'Unangax̂: Coastal People of Far Southwestern Alaska,' a paper by Douglas Veltre, an emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Tens of thousands of people of Japanese descent, including US citizens, were also placed in similar internment camps after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Congress voted in favor of paying reparations to both groups in 1988, specifically for the harm they suffered while imprisoned.
Wall Street Journal
17-06-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Trump's Tariffs Weaken America's Military
Eighty years ago, the U.S. Army Air Forces staged an exhibition beneath the Eiffel Tower. Thousands of Parisians gathered to admire the B-17 Flying Fortress—an American-built aircraft that helped liberate Europe from Nazi occupation. Primitive by today's standards, those bombers were the product of a national industrial base operating at full capacity. They were deployed by a trans-Atlantic alliance that shared logistics, intelligence and purpose. That model of coordination is what we need now—but it's being tested by a trade agenda that favors confrontation over cooperation. As I co-lead the congressional delegation to this week's Paris Air Show, the world's largest defense aerospace expo, I find myself asking: Is the greatest obstacle to America's security not China or Russia but our own trade policy?
