By the end of 1944, Hiroshima residents rushed preparations to repel an air raid. Mobilized citizens dismantled buildings in November to clear fire lanes and create open spaces to contain conflagrations at 133 locations designated the previous March. Central neighborhoods reverberated with the clatter of saws and axes, the heave-ho of workers pulling ropes attached to buildings, and the crescendo of crashing timber. By the end of the year, the first stage of the process was complete. More than one thousand buildings had been destroyed and 4,210 citizens evacuated. According to plan, the
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