The Firebombing of Tokyo – Epilogue
War is hell.
Vile.
Scars are left on those who had to endure the horror…
Those who witnessed it…
Those who fought in it…
But then hopefully there is a healing.
Perhaps it will take a generation or two.
But it will happen.
Perhaps one will never forget… but one can forgive.
Perhaps is it wrong of me – a person who never endured war – to say it so simply. Forgive.
But I have witnessed forgiving with Old Man Jack… Mr. Johnson…
Warriors have forgiven and tried to move on with their life in spite of nightmares for the rest of their lives.
Civilians, too.
The result is endearing friendship. The same USAF that bombed Japan assisted thousands of stranded Japanese civilians after the tsunami. The world has benefited but at the cost of the sanity of single souls so many decades ago.
Captain Ray B. Smisek
On Sept. 2, 1945, Captain Ray Smisek once again made a round trip flight to Tokyo.
This time, it was as a member of one of the great air armadas ever assembled in history. Over 300 carrier based Navy planes and hundreds of B-29s. MacArthur rightfully wanted to make an impression upon the Japanese people by ordering a huge flyover Tokyo Bay and the USS Missouri, where the formal surrender documents were signed. (They were to fly over at the moment of the signing but were late, upwards of ten minutes. MacArthur apparently whispered to General Hap Arnold of the USAAF something to the effect of, “Now would be a good time, Hap,” with respect to his missing armada.)
It was the crew’s 21st mission. They were going home.
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In Part 1, son S. Smisek said of his father that he hated to kill anything – even bugs. That was his character.
Capt. Ray Smisek returned home to his parents after the war and tried his hand in the Los Angeles real estate market; he also worked as a cook in a restaurant. He must have made one heckuva Sauerkraut, one of his favorites.
But… Ray Smisek had met a young woman while he and a back-seater were on a cross-country training flight in 1942. They were flying from Greenville, Mississippi when the BT-13 trainer developed engine trouble. To make matters worse, there was a bad storm. Not swell conditions when you’re training to be a pilot. Fortunately, the clouds miraculously parted and a small town below was bathed in forgiving sunlight. He said he did a barrel roll and dove through the break in the clouds. It turned out to be a rural airport in Springfield, MO (now known at the Springfield-Branson National Airport).
S. Smisek explained to me that his father rarely, if ever, talked about his time at war while he was growing up. That was very typical, you see. His son wrote very eloquently:
When I was growing up, he never spoke much of his time during the war. When asked about those times, I could see a sullenness come over his face, then he would most often ask me another question just to change the subject. In those rare exchanges when he would answer, he made it very clear that he desired no recognition for what he had done. He desired no contact with his fellow comrades, felt no honor for the devastation he had helped cause, and amazingly to me, felt no affection whatsoever for the incredible aircraft which had brought he and his crew back safely from so many missions over so many horrible places.
He, along with the rest of these brave young men, was an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being – a person who offered some of his life’s most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so that countless others would have the freedom to accomplish theirs.
Raymond B. Smisek was diagnosed with a very aggressive cancer in 1989 and passed away at home, surrounded by his family, in August 1990. He was just 70 years old. His son believes his father also suffered from another cancer – one related to unhealed scars from war. His son said they were cancers of the soul and spirit, much more damaging than those of the body. His wife – the singer in the big bands of the ’40s – passed away in 2001.
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Please visit his son’s tribute to the men of the 330th Bombardment Group at www.330th.org. For the sake of the families of the WWII airmen, S. Smisek has researched and brought many of the pieces together of what it was like for their fathers at war. Through his website and in a sterling triumph several years ago, S. Smisek played a key role in coordinating the meeting of a Japanese gentleman living in Canada with a B-29 pilot from his father’s squadron. Seventy years earlier, the Japanese gentleman was in Kumagaya Japan as an eight year old, running from the bombs being dropped from the pilot’s aircraft. The two finally met and it was moving and emotional moment per S. Smisek. For an article of the meeting, please click here.
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Aunt Eiko
There was no escaping bombardment for Aunt Eiko, even after moving to Fukui slightly inland from the Japan Sea; the US Navy shelled their farming neighborhood heavily. She also vividly remembers a small group of high school aged Japanese soldiers relaxing at the nearby beach and still cries inside knowing their fate.
Preceded by my mother, Aunt Eiko and grandma returned to Tokyo sometime in mid-September to find it in shambles. People were living in lean-to’s, she said, and running water still had not yet been re-established in devastated areas. Food was a tremendous daily hurdle. She cannot recall when but she remembers it was such a relief when MacArthur began rationing out beans and drinkable water…but it was American beans. Still, the beans were appreciated.
But their greatest savior surviving the first few months after war’s end was another relative – an American. An American of Japanese descent that is. Taro Tanji was born in Livingston, CA but was drafted out of the Amache War Relocation Center in Colorado by the US Army. He became a member of the famed Military Intelligence Service.
He arrived in Tokyo at war’s end as part of the US 8th Army’s Occupation Force. Through his intelligence connections, he was able to track down Aunt Eiko and family in a suburb called “Toritsu Daigaku”. Some of it had miraculously escaped burning.
Driving up in his US Army jeep, he stayed at their house every weekend. Each time, he would bring a duffle bag filled with C-rations, instant coffee and American cigarettes for my Grandfather (which he reluctantly accepted – funny story). Yes, Aunt Eiko ate the Spam and deviled ham. Taro managed to get in a good word and found both Aunt Eiko and my mother jobs at the PX.
Things were tough until the early 50’s. Dogs as pets were still rare as they also needed to be fed…but Aunt Eiko wanted dearly to achieve one of her dreams – to have a dog.
And so she did… She named him “Prince”, or “Puri” when you shorten “Pu-ri-un-su” pronounced in Japanese. She loved him until he passed away in 1968. She was devastated, of course. I think Puri was an escape from the war’s ugliness for her.
She met Paul Sakuma sometime in the late 60’s; he was a Hawaiian born Sansei who was also drafted by the US Army into the Military Intelligence Service by the US Army. He was attached to the 720th MP Battalion to serve as a translator. He told a funny story to Aunt Eiko where the MPs frequently raided certain types of “houses”… You know… GI’s were prohibited from “fraternizing with the enemy” so they would raid them. One time, there was a fellow MIS Nisei caught inside. He made sure the “howlies” couldn’t escape…but held the door open for the Nisei. After being discharged, he decided to stay in Tokyo to live and worked for the USAF as a civilian employee, using his knowledge of Japanese as a go-between.
They married but had no children – but a week before my first marriage in 1980, I got a phone call from Aunt Eiko in Tokyo. She was sobbing uncontrollably.
Uncle Paul had gone upstairs in their beautiful home he just had built for them after washing her car. He screamed, “Eiko!” It would be his last word; he suffered a massive heart attack and died, right there at the top of the stairs in his brand new home.
Soon after his death, Aunt Eiko immigrated to the US along with my grandmother. She became an US citizen about a dozen years ago.
In an irony, the country that bombed her city to ashes in 1945 bestowed upon her beloved husband Uncle Paul (as well as to Uncle Taro) the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010 for their service to the country. While both had passed away before the award, Aunt Eiko cried for happy when I surprised her with the medal. She said, “Even after all these years, Paul still brings me happiness.”
As for her childhood friends, she is all who remains now at 88 years of age, just like Old Man Jack. Her friend who was burned during the firebombings was one of the last to pass away. She was the tall girl standing behind Aunt Eiko atop the Asahi Newspaper Building on October 30, 1937 and shown here in 1963.
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A most sincere thank you to S. Smisek without whom this series would not have been possible. I wish him continued fortune with his 330th Bomb Group’s website, helping those descendants piece together their father’s contribution in World War II.
Previous parts can be found by clicking on the links below:
The Firebombing of Tokyo – Part 1
The Firebombing of Tokyo – Part 2
Masako and Spam Musubi 
Reblogged this on Lest We Forget and commented:
This says it all about wars and healing
Pierre, Merci beaucoup once again.
Thank you Koji. I hope you start another series because this was worth looking forward to, and learning from.
Thank you for reading; a lot of your precious time was required so thank you again.
The effort you put in to this series is obvious. It’s well worth the time to read Koji.
Thank you so very much. You deserve a green smoothie today!
That would be LOVELY! It’s been MONTHS since we’ve had any!
Another outstanding story. You relate the events while spanning the decades and bridging the gap between countries and time. A remarkable feat!
Thank you, gpcox, very much. Happy Thanksgiving. Without the sacrifice of young me like your pop, it may not have been.
Nicely done my new friend. Cheers
Couldn’t do it without our partnering up, sir. Thank you very much. I hope your family did not find things upsetting. Happy Thanksgiving!
What an incredibly powerful series of blogs this has been. Thank you.
Thank you. You all “over there” had your share of horror with the Blitzkrieg and the V-1 and V-2 rockets. Terror and shock combined.
Very well written and researched my friend.
Thank you, sir. Happy Thanksgiving!
Likewise!
Thank you for giving us both sides of this story. Your words show that it is at least possible for unity to emerge out of terrible destruction
Thank you for your kind comments, Hilary. As your ancestors know, you all had your terror “over there” with the Blitzkrieg, V-1 and V-2 rockets… Civilians all over the world suffered.
I hate to admit I knew nothing of the fire bombings, but they apparently happened about six months before Nagasaki and Hiroshima?
I think so much of your aunt and grieve for what she went through and am so glad she had those good years with her beloved Paul, even if it had to end so quickly and sadly.
Thanks very much for this, but PLEASE let me know (if you think of it) next time you blog; I am so glad I checked and feel privileged to have known about your aunt …. thanks… you did a wonderful job.
xxx Z
Thank you so much, Geeez, and Happy Thanksgiving. The firebombing started earlier in isolated incidents but LeMay made the decision to carpet bomb with incendiaries in full force; until then, it was mostly “miss” with high altitude bombing with high explosive bombs. Dresden made a big impression on him.
And thank you for your kind thoughts about Aunt Eiko and Uncle Paul. I will notify you if and when I post another story.
I just have to hound you again here because it’s so hard to find these newer posts and people won’t know to scroll down. Could you maybe add a post at the top saying “These are staying up here, please scroll down for newly dated posts?”
I know…I’m NAGGING AGAIN 🙂 But your posts are so worth it!
So sorry, Geeez! 😦 I will let you know! I will do something about the sticky…if I can remember when I get home!
Hap Arnold & the OSS were startled by the precision of the fire bombing of “Operation Gomarrah” (Hamburg) the fires would stop, leaving buildings across the street untouched. My father (OSS -US Navy) was called back from North Africa, and spent a few months filming experimental munition tests on the range in England (he was paid out of the US Embassy in London) with Kodak high speed prism cameras. I have a photograph of him and Lord Mountbatten walking together at the range. Mountbatten went to India to perfect B-29 logistics over the hump in China. In Sept. of 1944 Pop “wrote his own orders”: he carried a blue pass: “All ships and stations and military installations will assist this man in completion of his verbal orders”; my brother still has that blue card. Pop’s US Archive “Orders” list him with others bound for Paris, Fr. The others say he never showed up. He saw his 3y old son and wife in Greenbelt, MD. for the first time, and flew to the USAAF film studio, now Culver City Studios. On March 4th, orders returned Pop to London, where he edited German films sent back from Europe for SCOTUS Jackson. Jackson refused to run such images during the Nuremberg trials. Pop got an LOM w/clusters & V. for NOT burning Heriheto’s palace. LeMay’s input into the project is BS, a cut-out story. The mission took years to design.
Sir, a fascinating and unique story. For your dad to have known Mountbatten! Wow! I was unaware of how the fires would stop in Hamburg. For Japan, many streets were narrow dirt walkways and private residences were all wood and paper. Perhaps you can have your brother take a good pic of that blue pass… Thank you for your visit, sir.
Some wonderful writing. Thank you and have a nice Christmas!
Sir, that was very kind of you… and a Merry Christmas to you too!
Great stuff. All my best,
S.
And the same to you, sir! As father’s day approaches, your dad must be in your heart.
You were one-half of this historically accurate “not fake news” report, S! Many thanks for sharing and partnering up.
Anytime, Koji-san.
It was an honour assisting in any way possible to bring your talents to be viewed by so many.
Enjoy life!
S.
I’ve just spent some 2 1/2 hours plus with all the associated links in this one post. Your link -old man jack- My “old man” was also an AMM1/C. Like so many others, would not say much about his service. A never to be resolved question, is that all he ever talked about was being on Guam. (WTF) Why Guam?
Hell, it matters not anymore. I don’t miss him; he was a street angel and house devil. Still I find it weird that an AMM1 would be on Guam, not on a carrier.
Many Navy personnel served on the islands in many roles before, during and after the US invasion of Guam as you know. A US naval air base was built there in mid-1944 by SeaBees if my memory is somewhat intact so your father may have spent some time there. Marine Corsairs were there as well as a Navy hospital.
That blue card? Pop was floating around on a British battleship filming the invasion of Sicily after months in North Africa… another story.
When things calmed down on the beaches, he ask the English Captain where they were headed next, Pop (an enlisted CPO) needed to get the film back to London. Where Would You Like? I’m working on your orders. They put Pop off at a rocky inlet on Malta. I will ask my Brother to find the card tomorrow:)