Photo/Illutration Yoshihiro Yakushige, right, hands over the request to add two American POWs to the list of Osaka air raid victims to Hisako Mori, left, director of the Osaka International Peace Center, which manages the list, in Osaka on Dec. 7. (Masato Tainaka)

OSAKA—Eighty years after they died in an air raid, a U.S. corporal and an American civilian who were being held as prisoners of war will be added to an official victims' list that currently contains more than 9,000 names.

A citizens’ group here submitted an application on Dec. 7 to add Cpl. Richard Rider, 25, and American civilian Donald H. Rienks, 33, to the list of those killed in the first Osaka air raid in March 1945.

The citizens' group is called the “Osaka Kushu Rengokokugun Giseisha wo Kiokusuru Kai” (Osaka air raid victim of allied forces memorial association).

“Adding the two American war prisoners to the victims' list will show that the air raid attack harmed people regardless of nationality,” said Yoshihiro Yakushige, 54, from the memorial association, which consists of private researchers and other members.

“It is known that some American prisoners of war also died in the atomic bombings, but many details about foreign victims of air raids across Japan remain unclear.”

Osaka International Peace Center, also known as Peace Osaka, a public interest incorporated foundation that operates the peace memorial facility within the Osaka Castle Park grounds, manages the list. 

The project to compile the list of the air raid victims in the prefecture was outsourced by the Osaka prefectural government.

Peace Osaka said it plans to add the two Americans by the end of March 2026. Once included, these victims, who came from the country that carried out the air raids, will be mourned along with 9,159 Japanese, Chinese and those from the Korea Peninsula at the same site.

In the final phase of the Pacific War, Osaka was hit by air raids about 50 times, including eight major ones. The total number of deaths and those missing is estimated to be about 15,000.

The first bombing air raids in Osaka, which took place from the middle of the night on March 13, 1945, to before dawn on March 14, claimed the lives of about 4,000 people.

According to the research led by a former member of the memorial association, the late Masayuki Tsukazaki, Rider and Rienks, both of whom were imprisoned at Tsumori branch, one of the seven prisoner-of-war camps in Osaka, reportedly died from the damage caused by the bombing.

The deaths of the two Americans came to light through Tsukazaki’s research, which found that the U.S. National Archives held a list compiled by the U.S. military after the war. The list, based on notes written by another U.S. prisoner of war, Major Warren A. Minton, during his captivity about the deaths of his comrades, included the two men.

Peace Osaka said that once the two American names are added to the list, they will be engraved on the copper plate, where names of other victims are displayed, in the facility courtyard.

“The monument mourns the victims of the Osaka air raids, including those from abroad,” said Hisako Mori, director of the Osaka International Peace Center. “War makes no one happy. We’d like to pass on the importance of peace to the next generation.” 

Even today, bereaved Japanese families of Osaka air raid victims continue to submit requests to add names, while those of Korean Peninsula origin submit applications each year to change the victims’ Japanese names to their original ethnic names.

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