A Forgotten Firebombing, Ctd

Several readers recommend the 1988 anime film Grave of the Fireflies for some insight into Japan’s wartime experience:

The movie opens, very memorably, with the firebombing of Kobe and the intense panic, horror, and death of those bombings. Roger Ebert called it “an emotional experience so powerful that it forces a rethinking of animation,” and I can only agree. Viewing the movie is the only reason I became aware of the firebombings of Japan, and I imagine it played a similar role for many other people outside of Japan.

Another suggests re-watching Errol Morris’ The Fog Of War:

Morris interviews Bob McNamara, an architect of the war in Vietnam, about his participation in the planning and execution of the firebombing campaign in WWII. It wasn’t just Tokyo. Start at 2:43 or so in this clip (though the whole thing is a valuable viewing).

Meanwhile, another reader found herself confronting America’s wartime past on a trip to Japan:

In 1995, I visited Tokyo on business. A couple of us went to the recently opened Edo-Tokyo Museum, which focuses on the history of the city. Browsing the exhibits, we came upon a television that was set to run footage of the firebombing of Tokyo. A group of fellow museum-goers was watching the footage in silence. We did as well. We were the only Caucasians in the museum that day – Easter Sunday, as it happens – and it was probably obvious we were Americans. I can think of few occasions on which I have felt more uncomfortable.