Katsumoto Saotome, who as a 12-year-old schoolboy survived the American firebombing of Tokyo during the Second World War and later spent decades chronicling in books and documentary films the largely forgotten episode that killed as many as 100,000 civilians and left about one million homeless, has died aged 90.
Saotome was at home with his parents and sisters when 334 low-flying American B-29 “Flying Fortress” warplanes firebombed the city in early 1945, levelling much of it. The devastation presaged the American atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that August, followed weeks later by Japan's unconditional surrender.
