The Houses Were Going up Like Small Tornadoes

Heroes Remember

The Houses Were Going up Like Small Tornadoes

The last of the war we used to get a little bit of information about what was going on. Then we used to see these big B-29's going over taking pictures. I was in the, I remember the Doolittle raid where the small airplanes came over and machine gunned and dropped bombs. But I never seen them but I heard the airplanes, and I heard the stories that they had machine gunned along the railroad tracks and stuff like that and dropped their bombs. This frightened the Japs then and they made a big firebreak in front of our camp all along. So they were kinda scared after that. The B-29's came over and took pictures at first and then one day they come over, a nice bright sunny day, and they turned Yokohama, they bombed Yokohama and they turned it just like into just like night. They must have hit oil tanks or something. The sky was just black. And I was in the fire of Tokyo, you know, when the fire swept through Tokyo - the biggest one, one of the biggest fires in the world and the houses were going up like small tornadoes. See their houses are just made of wood, about a 1/4 of an inch thick wood. They were very thin with straw mattresses and stuff like that in them they just went up. In a matter of minutes they were gone and the wind was so fierce, it took the roof off of their camp. But we all went to the patio. We went to the rice fields but left a skeleton crew in there to make sure we didn’t burn down. But we were lucky. I think the airplanes kept clear. We could see the incendiaries dropping but they didn’t drop on our camp but we could see them dropping. So it took the roof off our camp and that’s all that happened to our camp.

Mr. Yeadon describes the impact of American bombing raids on Yokohama and Tokyo.

Francis Edison Yeadon

Francis Edison Yeadon was born in Spryfield, Nova Scotia, on September 24, 1924. He was the youngest in a family of eight. After leaving school at the age of 16, he joined the Merchant Navy in Halifax. Mr. Yeadon completed one successful North Atlantic convoy, before being captured at sea while transporting a shipload of arms to India. He remained aboard the German “raider” for several months, finally being turned over to the Japanese at Yokohama. Included is a good account of the American bombing(s) which led to Japan’s capitulation. Mr. Yeadon remained in the merchant marine after the war, due, as he says, to the lack of educational opportunities offered to Veterans of the Armed Forces.

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 3:01
Person Interviewed:: Francis Edison Yeadon
War, Conflict or Mission:: Second World War
Location/Theatre:: Japan
Battle/Campaign:: North Atlantic
Branch:: Merchant Navy
Occupation:: Seaman

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Date modified:: 2024-12-30