Woman Recounts Deadly U.S. Airstrikes of Chiba 80 Years Ago

   Chiba, July 7 (Jiji Press)--An 87-year-old woman from the city of Chiba, east of Tokyo, looked back at two rounds of deadly U.S. airstrikes that took the lives of over 1,200 people in the city in the late stages of the Pacific War, part of World War II, 80 years ago, saying that war kills people and hearts.
   "If the attacks had hit slightly different places, I wouldn't be here," Fumiko Takayama, a former school teacher, said. The airstrikes burned down about 60 pct of the city's urban areas.
   The first bombing came on the morning of June 10, 1945. A warning siren went off after she finished her late breakfast that Sunday. Soon after she started preparations to evacuate to a shelter, the siren changed into an air raid alert.
   Just as she was about to put on her shoes, a cloud of dust from a blast made it impossible to see anything. Takayama dropped to the ground, covering her eyes, nose and ears with her hands, as she had been taught at school. Her family hid in a closet and was safe.
   A few days later, Takayama noticed that part of her emergency hood had been burnt off. "I would have been dead if I hadn't got down," she says.

(2025/07/07-16:17)