I Saw Tokyo Burning Book Summary

Robert Guillain’s account of the firestorm in Tokyo and Dr. Michihiko Hachiya’s diary entry of the bombing of Hiroshima are both harrowing tales of the death and destruction caused by American forces in attempts to defeat Japan in World War II, and as such they are historically important for their depiction of the human tragedy inflicted by the U.S. military against the Japanese. Although the Allied forces are regarded by history as the noble victors of the Second World War, I Saw Tokyo Burning and Hiroshima Diary are important to remind younger generations that America’s victory came at extraordinary costs; the mainstream consensus today that such atrocities were justified on utilitarian grounds is complicated by the vivid and emotional accounts of pure horror.

I Saw Tokyo Burning was written by Robert Guillain, a French reporter living in Japan during World War II. After witnessing Tokyo’s fire-bombing first-hand, he returned to France the following year in 1946 and published a book detailing his experiences. Additionally, Hiroshima Diary was penned by Dr. Hachiya, who was just about a mile from the epicenter of the atomic bomb’s explosion. He survived the bombing and kept a diary of his experience, which was translated and published in English in 1955.

military action against the people of Japan was a horrific act of violence against innocent lives, I do subscribe to the mainstream belief that the attack was a necessary evil. In reading epic accounts of human tragedy, it is easy to allow one’s emotions to over-ride their decision-making. However, Hachiya’s and Guillain’s accounts do not speak to whether even greater atrocities would have been inevitable in the event of a U.S. land invasion of Japan. I do believe it is morally justified to kill 100,000 innocent people in order to save 1 million innocent people, notwithstanding the fact that the original act of killing will cause enormous pain and