Opinion: 75 Years On, Remember Hiroshima And Nagasaki. But Remember Toyama Too

On Aug. 1, 1945, 12-year-old Hideko Sudo went to bed fully clothed and full of worry. For days, air raid alerts had left the coastal city of Toyama on edge, prompting her school's closure. More alarmingly, earlier that day, American planes had rained down leaflets warning of an imminent attack.

Hideko's fears proved well-founded. Despite a sophisticated alert system and a decade of air defense drills, the arrival just after midnight of a wave of B-29 bombers plunged Toyama into chaos. Superfortresses — 173 of them — encountered only sparse antiaircraft fire as they released around 1,500 tons of incendiaries onto the city's center.

In a few short hours, Toyama was enveloped by a "sea of fire," Hideko recalled in a written account. Over 95% of the city was incinerated, leaving around 2,600 people dead. While Hideko's family survived, they numbered among the 165,000 left homeless, virtually the entire population.