Photo/Illutration Kayoko Ebina addresses bereaved families at a gathering in Tokyo in March 2017 to remember victims of the Great Tokyo Air Raid of March 10, 1945. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

On the 76th anniversary of the Great Tokyo Air Raid, which left her a young orphan, essayist Kayoko Ebina received a surprising letter that touched a chord in her. 

The letter came from a senior official at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, thanking her for arranging an annual gathering to remember victims of the firebombing attack.

Joseph Young, charge d’affaires ad interim, sent the letter to Ebina as a personal message, according to the U.S. Embassy.

“Thank you for the opportunity to join you in solemn remembrance of all the victims who were lost over the course of the Second World War,” the letter read.

Ebina, 87, said, “This letter is written to many people who were orphaned from the air raid. I’ll keep this in a box as a treasure.”

Ebina lost six family members in the massive air raid of March 10, 1945, which left the capital in flames and ashes. An estimated 100,000 people died in the attack.

Ebina was born in the Honjo district, which is now Sumida Ward, in Tokyo. She had evacuated to her aunt’s home in Shizuoka Prefecture at the time of the bombing.

In the early hours of March 10, 1945, she climbed a nearby mountain while an air raid siren blared. When she looked in the direction of Tokyo, she saw the area a bright glowing red.

“Please save my family,” Ebina prayed.

Several days later, however, her brother, two years older than her, brought his sister the bad news: the rest of their family--their grandmother, parents and three brothers--all perished in the attack.

Ebina said she stayed at her relatives and acquaintances after the air raid, moving from one place to another. She couldn’t attend much of her classes in junior high school and sometimes was forced to eat weeds to ease her hunger pains.

At the time, she didn’t know where she could obtain certificates verifying that she was a survivor of the bombing and a bereaved family member of those who died in the air raid.

She said she has never received an invitation to an annual memorial service for victims of the bombing held by the Tokyo metropolitan government because she has yet to be officially recognized as a bereaved family member.

Ebina married the rakugo storyteller Hayashiya Sanpei I (1925-1980) and their children included Hayashiya Shozo IX and Hayashiya Sanpei II, who are also rakugo storytellers. She has been sharing her experience of the Tokyo air raid in such books as “Ushiro no Shomen Dare” (Who’s Left Behind?) and at lectures.

In 2005, Ebina began holding a gathering to remember the victims of the air raid and pray for peace in front of a memorial monument and a statue of a mother and children she erected in Tokyo’s Ueno district. The number of participants of the annual gathering has risen each year, exceeding 1,200 at one time.

A staffer of the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo visited Ebina’s home on March 8 when she was preparing for this year’s gathering. An envelope the staff handed her contained two sheets of a letter from Young, one written in Japanese and the other in English.

In addition to thanking Ebina for her activities, Young touched on the “enduring friendship” between the people of Japan and the United States.

Ebina said she used to hate the United States, but the bitterness left her following her visit to Pearl Harbor, where Japan staged a sneak attack on the U.S. fleet on Dec. 7, 1941. She saw books of the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima on sale there, making her realize that both victims and attackers were suffering.

She also said she wants to continue telling people of the cruelty of war by sharing her experience of the Tokyo air raid.

But she has mixed feelings. Unlike members of the former Imperial Japanese Army, civilian victims of the bombing are not eligible for compensation from the Japanese government. Support for orphans of the air raid is also insufficient.

“We can feel much relief if the government expresses appreciation for the pain we had to endure,” Ebina said in disappointment.

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