Timeline -
April 1931 – Tomoko is born;
December 1941 – Japanese planes attack an American naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; (1)
April 1942 – Doolittle air raids are carried out on Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka; (2)
*****
June 1944 – American strategic B-29 air raid bombing begins throughout Japan; (3)
Tomoko and her family leave Tokyo for Kyushu Island;
*****
March 9th and 10th, 1945 – Using strategies learned from the Allied fire bombings of Dresden and Hamburg (Operation Gomorrah) in Germany, Curtis LeMay launches Operation Meetinghouse on Tokyo; 2,000 tons of napalm-carrying incendiary bombs are dropped, destroying 16 square miles of the city; at least 100,000 people are killed and a million are left homeless. A total of 67 Japanese cities are destroyed; (4)
April 1945— Tomoko turns 14 in Kyushu;
July 1945 — Tomoko and her family return to Tokyo;
August 6th, 1945 – An atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima; approximately 80,000 are killed; (5)
August 9th, 1945 – An atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki; approximately 60,000 are killed; (6)
September 2nd, 1945 – Japanese officials sign a document of surrender while aboard the USS Missouri; General Douglas MacArthur is appointed Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers; the American Occupation of Japan begins; (7)
*****
November 12th, 1948 – Hideki Tojo is sentenced to death by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and later executed by hanging on December 23rd; (8)
*****
1949 – General MacArthur returns power to the Japanese government; (9)
*****
April 1951 – General MacArthur leaves Tokyo; (10)
September 1951 – Occupation in Japan comes to an end; (11)
Timeline online sources –
1 – http://www.japanairraids.org/?page_id=135;
2 – http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/doolittle-leads-air-raid-on-tokyo
3 – http://www.japanairraids.org/?page_id=135;
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/us-b-29s-raid-tokyo
4 - http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/firebombing-of-tokyo;
http://www.atomicbombmuseum.org/2_manhattan.shtml
http://wired.com/2011/03/0309incendiary-bombs-kill-100000-tokyo/
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/tokyo.htm;
http://www.ditext.com/japan/napalm.html
5 - http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-II/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki
6 - http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-II/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki
7 - http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/the-emperors-speech-67-years-ago-hirohito-transformed-japan-forever/261166/;
http://www.historynet.com/american-proconsul-how-douglas-macarthur-shaped-postwar-japan.htm
8 – http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/598171/Tojo-Hideki
9 - http://www.historynet.com/american-proconsul-how-douglas-macarthur-shaped-postwar-japan.htm
10 - http://www.historynet.com/american-proconsul-how-douglas-macarthur-shaped-postwar-japan.htm;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHtx1EV8XDI
11 -http://www.historynet.com/american-proconsul-how-douglas-macarthur-shaped-postwar-japan.htm;
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/japan-reconstruction
YOU ARE READING
Forged In Fire: Stories of wartime Japan
Non-FictionForged In Fire is the true story of a young girl's childhood in pre-WW II Tokyo; her schoolgirl dreams; the violence, starvation and desperation of wartime that drove her family out of the city; and the American Occupation that shaped Japan's future...
