It was among the deadliest wartime events in history, killing an estimated 100,000 people, injuring tens of thousands more and leaving a million homeless. So why has the Great Tokyo Air Raid never been properly memorialized in Japan?

That question has haunted Katsumoto Saotome for much of his life.

Saotome was 12 years old when he awoke to find his working-class neighborhood had been turned into a “sea of fire.” It was just after midnight on the morning of March 10, 1945, and a force of more than 300 American B-29 bombers had begun to rain napalm cluster bombs and white phosphorus incendiaries on the capital in a bid to force the wartime government to surrender.