Fascinating museum on an often overlooked topic. I learnt a lot during my visit. Please consider making a donation to support their efforts.

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A very informative and well organized museum. There are two main areas with the first more focused on information and informative videos. Would highly recommend learning how to use your translate app before entering although there are also English translations for the big slides. The other area contains more physical items related to the raids and war as a whole. A very sweet older Japanese woman handed us paper cranes while translating through her phone when leaving.

This small museum packs an emotional wallop if you let the content sink in. Upon entry, if the lady sees you are not Japanese, she will give you a folder that has a ton of English explanations of what is displayed in the museum. Very helpful. The video playing on a loop is something you should sit through - a survivor of the bombing tells his story. There is an interesting timeline of the use of military force on a civilian population historically on a worldwide scope, and that was something that I was somehow surprised to see.

As a Malaysian Chinese visitor, this was one of the most emotionally heavy museums I have ever visited in Japan. The documentaries, preserved artifacts, survivor accounts and visuals inside the Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage were deeply moving. It is not a place people walk out from smiling. The suffering of ordinary civilians during the Tokyo air raids was presented in a very human and heartbreaking way. At the same time, walking through the exhibition also leaves visitors reflecting on the larger tragedy of war itself. No matter which side people stood on, ordinary civilians ultimately became the biggest victims. Reading the handwritten messages left by Japanese students and visitors was especially impactful. Many young Japanese appear to genuinely struggle with understanding both the pain Japan suffered and the history Japan caused during the war. That emotional conflict felt very real and human. I sincerely believe this museum deserves far more public attention, preservation funding and educational support. The Tokyo air raids were one of the most devastating events in modern history, yet outside Japan many people barely know about them. I would also like to pay tribute to the museum’s first director, who passed away in 2022. Efforts like this ensure that painful memories are not erased with time, and that future generations can continue learning the value of peace through real human stories. War has no true winner. In the end, ordinary people on both sides are the ones who lose the most.

The memorial museum has a variety of historical materials collected, including the map of the bombing of Tokyo by the US Army, the number of casualties in various districts, and the multiple wrecks left behind by the bombing, which is a frightening sight to see. The site of the first wave of U.S. air strikes was in the present-day Koto district, where I lived for a short time in Tokyo this time. Before 1945, this area was called Joto-ku, and it was not until after World War II that the name was changed to Koto-ku. Since most of the houses in Tokyo at that time were made of wood, many Tokyo residents were buried in a fire when the US Army dropped millions of tons of incendiary bombs in the middle of the night. Some were burned alive while crammed on bridges during the escape, while some mothers became charred corpses carrying their young children on their backs... The strategic targets of the U.S. military were not military installations but civilians, homes, and schools. In history books, the Bombing of Tokyo is always skimmed over, and most people do not look into the controversies behind this historic event. Japan invaded its neighbors in World War II, slaughtered civilians, and even forced colonists to pledge allegiance to the Imperial Army. But was the U.S. indiscriminate incendiary attack on civilians in Tokyo a demonstration of "justice"? History should not be the propaganda of the victors but the truth that should be tried to be restored from different perspectives. Finally, my friend uggested that the museum hould include the history of Curtis LeMay, the mastermind of the Tokyo air raid, in the memorial. In December 1964, LeMay was awarded the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun, and in the 1968 U.S. presidential election, he was the Independent Party's nominee for Vice President George Wallace. Wallace was considered a racist representative of the "Southern Democrats.

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