Survivors, kin to sue state over 1945 U.S. air raid on Tokyo

More than 100 survivors and victims' relatives plan to file a lawsuit next year demanding the Japanese government compensate them and apologize over a major U.S. air raid on Tokyo in 1945, some of the would-be plaintiffs said Sunday. An estimated 100,000 people were killed when U.S. B-29s bombed vast areas of the capital in a predawn raid on March 10, 1945, about five months before Japan surrendered in World War II.

The would-be plaintiffs plan to argue that the Japanese government has offered war compensation merely to veterans and their relatives in violation of the principle of equality guaranteed under the postwar Constitution. They will also condemn a delayed decision by the Japanese government to end the war, saying it led to the destruction caused by the raids.