TOKYO -- A small rooftop room at a hospital heavily damaged in the 1945 Great Tokyo Air Raid will be preserved as a relic of the disaster even after the building is demolished.

The room remains at the former main building of San-ikukai Hospital in the capital's Sumida Ward, which was damaged in the major air raid by the U.S. military on March 10, 1945, toward the end of the Pacific War. The "witness" to the tragedy in which 100,000 people died was on the brink of being destroyed as it has been decided that the building would be demolished due to reasons including deterioration, but organizations including the Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage in Koto Ward have embarked on efforts to preserve the room. It is extremely rare for facilities damaged in air raids to be kept, and an expert said the relic, which has miraculously survived for nearly 80 years, is "very valuable."

Blackened walls and ceiling, charred pieces of wood

The building with four stories above ground and one below was completed in 1930. The area around the hospital was burned to the ground in the air raid, and the interior of the facility was also burned, but the reinforced concrete building itself survived. The facility was used until August this year.

The room, measuring 4.1 by 4.1 meters and 2.85 meters high, is on the building's rooftop. The walls inside and the ceiling made of concrete are blackened, and charred pieces of wood remain. The metal frame of the door that faced the outside during the air raid shows traces of paint that appear to have melted from the heat, vividly conveying the reality of the raging fire.

No blueprints of the building remain, and it is unknown what the purpose of this small room was. According to Atsuhiro Toya, 47, who is in charge of rebuilding the hospital facility, longtime employees of the hospital have said that the room was "a place where soot from the Great Tokyo Air Raid remains."

The traces have remained because the building was not reconstructed after the air raid and there were few people going in and out of the room. Toya consulted with museums, saying, "It has remained by a miracle of chance. If it is demolished, it's gone. I want to preserve it as a historical relic and to show the history of the hospital that has been in operation since before the war."

The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage confirmed that the surrounding area had been burned to the ground from an aerial photo taken by the U.S. military three weeks after the air raid. The center concluded that the room's damage is from that time, as the hospital has no records of a fire after the war, and based on oral recollection from successive employees of the facility.

Opportunity to prevent repeat of war

Most of the buildings in the areas hit by the air raid were wooden structures, and they were burned by incendiary bombs dropped by more than 300 U.S. B-29 planes.

Kenta Chiji, 44, a curator at the center who surveyed the hospital room, said, "I was surprised to see such a structure still remain. It is difficult to really feel the atmosphere of air raids and war. This can be a trigger for people to imagine air raids when we can no longer hear directly from those who experienced them." The center will apparently consider exhibiting the damaged walls and charred objects.

The Edo-Tokyo Museum in Sumida Ward is also investigating the condition of the room where soot remains as it has value as a historical heritage.

Yumiko Yoshida, 83, who was born and raised near where Tokyo Skytree now stands, about 500 meters from the hospital, lost her parents and 3-month-old sister in the air raid. She looked at the small room on Nov. 12 and commented, "I'm glad it has remained. You can see that the fire was so intense. It must have been hot and painful for my parents and others. I think this will be a great help to convey that the air raid really happened."

Setsuko Kawai, 85, who lost her mother and two younger brothers in the present-day Fukagawa district of Koto Ward, said, "Normally, these facilities would have been destroyed with heavy machinery. I'm grateful to the people at the hospital who realized how important it was. I hope it will help people think about what they should do to prevent a repeat of the war."

Toya also said, "I thought there would be such remains, but I was surprised at how valuable it is."

The hospital was initially a pregnancy and infant consultation center, established in 1918 when volunteers from the Christian youth association of Tokyo Imperial University provided free medical care for the poor. A maternity clinic was opened the following year, and though it was destroyed by fire in the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, it was reopened at a temporary hospital and continued to provide health care for mothers and children in the local community.

It is not known how many people were in the hospital at the time of the Great Tokyo Air Raid. However, the hospital handled 8,579 births in fiscal 1941, the year the Pacific War began, an average of about 23 per day, so it is believed to have been a large hospital in the area at the time. After the air raid, the hospital evacuated expectant and nursing mothers and infants to Nagano in central Japan and continued to provide medical care. It resumed full services in Tokyo the year after the disaster while repairing its wards.

In light of this history, Toya said, "I want to convey the fact that many people overcame the major scars of the war and have moved forward."

The building's full-scale demolition work is scheduled to begin in early 2025, the 80th anniversary of the end of the war.

(Japanese original by Yoshiya Goto, Photo Group; and Toshio Kurihara, Cultural News Department; video by Yoshiya Goto)