TMCnet News
Tokyo air raid victims, kin to sue Japanese gov't possibly Aug. 15+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)TOKYO, March 4_(Kyodo) _ A group of victims and relatives of those who died in the U.S. air raids on Tokyo in March 1945 decided Saturday to sue the Japanese government to seek an apology and financial compensation. The group agreed at a gathering in Tokyo's Taito Ward to file the lawsuit targeting Aug. 15, the anniversary of the end of World War II. It had intended to take the action last August but postponed the plan. Group members said that more than 100 people have already expressed their wish to join the suit, which would be the first to be filed by a large group for damages caused by wartime air raids. In the lawsuit, they plan to point out that the government provided postwar compensation to military personnel and civilian employees of the armed forces as well as their bereaved relatives but not for common civilians, saying they must tolerate the damages caused during the war, according to the members. A total of 113 people, including group members, have said they want to take part in the lawsuit, and of them, about 40 have submitted statements to the group's secretariat about the damages they personally sustained in the air raids. In the early hours of March 10, 1945, more than 300 B-29s raided Tokyo, destroying a large part of the capital and killing an estimated 100,000 people. |