CAN TOKYO STAND UP TO BOMBING?

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 59, 10 March 1945, Page 8

CAN TOKYO STAND UP TO BOMBING?

By WILFRID FLEISHER

TT will do neither to exaggerate the *■ effect of the bombing of Tokyo and picture the city as a tinder box, nor to minimise the raiding and compare the Japanese capital with great European cities which have withstood frequent bombings, because Tokyo, by the nature of its construction, is a unique mixture of Eastern and Western architecture.

I lived for sixteen years in Tokyo, until the end of 1940, and can claim a real knowledge of the city s geography and construction. I know it well enough to have found my way about in air raid practice blackouts which in Japan are so strictly enforced that there is not a flicker ot light, and it is hard to believe in the existence of the city. The Japanese undoubtedly have made great efforts to develop whatever protection they could for Tokyo within the last four years, but they could not change its construction. They lacked the building materials, the labour, the time and the money

One Main Boulevard Tokyo is not the tinder box it was when the earthquake of September 1 1923, destroyed seven-tenths of the city, mostly by fire, killing 68 000 persons and leaving more than 1500,000 homeless. But the ambitious plans made then to build a great modern city that would not again become the prey of such a conflagration materialised only in part The original plan of the late Viscount Shimtei Goto, then Home Minister, calling for a 3 000 000,00 ) yen expenditure was scaled down to 632,000 ouu yen, and post-earthquake Tokyo turned out to be not very different from the pre-earthquake city. One large boulevard was built running the length of Tokyo and many other streets were widened and 'new bridges built. Here is the official Japanese tabulation: Fiftytwo new roads, 73 secondary streets 523 now bridges, 117 new schools and 54 new parks. While this is impressive it must he remembered that all the bridges were destroyed and nadi to be replaced, that the new roads listed were often mere widening of old roads. . ~ The greatest difference was in the number of concrete buildings that were erected in the downtown business section. The Imperial Hotel, built by an American architect, Frank Llovd Wright, attracted much attention because it was one of the few large buildings in Tokyo to emerge unscathed from the earthquake. The Prime Minister's residence therefore was built along the lines of the Imperial Hotel. There may be a couple of hundred of concrete buildings in Tokyo and vicinity now, but this is only a small fraction of the total number of buildings in the city, most of them wooden frame and paper shacks which extend over about 30 square miles. Certainly the bulk of Tokyo s population is housed in the typical Japanese frame bungalows or twostorey dwellings. Some of these display misleading fronts for they give the appearance of being stone buildings, whereas they are frame houses with a thin stucco exterior. This is true of many of the stores along the Ginza, Tokyo's main street.

Well Known Buildings The concrete buildings are well known to Tokyo citizens. They include the Diet building, the Parliament, on a hilltop dominating the city. American flyers cannot fail to notice it and its square tower should be as distinctive a signpost as Mount Fuji. There is the Marunouchi building, a big office structure opposite the Tokyo station; the Central Post Office across the street from the Marunouchi building; the Central Telegraph and Telephone offices, a stone's throw away; the buildings formerly occupied by the National City Bank of New York, in the same area, the Mitsui Gomel Keisha, the main office of the big capitalist interests somewhat farther along the canal; the Mitsukoshi department store, adjoining it, the Matsuya and Shirokiya department stores, on the Ginza; the newspaper Asahi, back along the canal, and the JOAK radio station. All of these

arc solid buildings which would ■stand up under bombings as well as any buildings in western cities.

Then .there is the secondary category of older brick buildings of doubtful resistance. They include, for instance. Tokyo station, the War and Navy Ministry, the Tokyo Club, the former Diet building, the official residence of the President of the House of Peers, the Foreign Office, etc. All these are landmarks to Tokyo residents. The fact that one can enumerate most of the important buildings in Tokyo shows that thennumber is limited.

Precautions The Japanese are, of course, thoroughly aware of what is happening in Germany. Thendiplomats in Berlin and consular officers in Germany have been able to give them first-hand accounts of the Allied bombings of German cities which can have left them with no doubt as to what is in store for Tokyo and other Japanese industrial cities such as Yokohama, Osaka, Kobe and Nagoya. Reports indicate that the Japanese Government has evacuated about one-fifth of the population from Tokyo and that new fire lanes have been constructed through the city by demolishing thousands of houses. Homes in the vicinity of likely targets, such as railway stations, power houses and factories, have been destroyed.

There are probably few adequate air-raid shelters in Tokyo. Although the 0.W.1, has stated that the subway is deep under ground, I watched the building of the Tokyo subway for years and it is so shallow that mere planks were laid over it while it was building and traffic ran overhead. , , The Japanese Government has undoubtedly done everything it could to protect Tokyo, but it has had an impossible P.robletn on its hands—to rebuild a city of 7,000,000 in a hurry and in war time. It is ridiculous to compare Tokyo with Cologne or Berlin, with thenmassive German architecture. Tokyo may fight back, but it is one of the world's most vulnerable cities, lnat is my opinion as an old-time resident.