World War II was hours from ending when the sky over Japan's Kumagaya turned orange. In one corner of the city, a woman gave birth. American bombers approached, their bellies full of napalm. She had no shelter and no time. By dawn, her daughter, Kazumi Yoneda, would be one of the youngest survivors of the last firebombing raid of WWII.
That night, August 14, 1945, nearly 90 US B-29 bombers dropped more than 6,000 tonnes of incendiaries on Kumagaya. At least 260 people were killed, thousands injured, and three-quarters of the city turned to ash. All in 12 hours.
The war ended with the voice of Emperor Hirohito announcing Japan's surrender.
Kazumi Yoneda would later write of her birth in a book of poetry titled 'The Day I Was Born':
"The day I was born, flames devoured the city.
My mother gave birth,
held me close -
And stood among
The ruins of her home.
Her body gave no mother's milk
She held her ever-crying child in her arms."
Kumagaya, with a population of under 50,000, was not a major industrial centre. It had a small air academy and a modest aircraft parts facility, but many have since questioned the justification for the raid. According to war correspondent Homer Bigart, even some of the bomber crews were uneasy, questioning the necessity of targeting what he called "a pathetically small city of little obvious importance."
The aircrews, idle since Nagasaki, were told Kumagaya had rail yards and factories, enough to justify one last raid.
They were also told to listen for a code word: 'Utah'. If they heard it, Japan had surrendered, and they could turn back.
The code word never came.
Pilot Vivian Lock, who flew that night, later wrote, "I have always regretted all the innocent people killed, injured and the loss of home and property."
The B-29 crews, he said, kept asking mid-flight: "Have you heard anything yet?" hoping for 'Utah'.
Kazue Hojo, 7, ran with her family through the burning streets. A shard of metal tore into her mother's neck. Her baby brother was burned. "It was bright like daytime," she recalled. By morning, the city was flattened. Survivors wept in the streets. "That's my most painful memory of the war," Ms Hojo told CNN.
At Sekijoji Temple, a statue of monk Kobodaishi bears a scorched face, rescued by a priest as the temple collapsed. For decades, the statue was hidden until a peace museum asked to show it. Students cried when they saw it. They asked questions. "If people are to learn about peace, they can see the statue," said 79-year-old head priest Tetsuya Okayasu.
The Kumagaya raid was part of General Curtis LeMay's incendiary campaign, which had already devastated dozens of Japanese cities, including Tokyo, where a single night of bombing in March 1945 killed more than 1 lakh people.
