Kamaishi resident Otoko Wada couldn't help but recall how the U.S. Navy shelled the local steel plant 70 years ago, after the devastating earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, rocked Iwate Prefecture and left the city in ruins all over again.

"The distressing scene was the same as at that time," Wada, 85, said recently at her nursing home in Kamaishi. "The whole town was gone. I got choked up inside as I thought I never wanted to see it again."

Kamaishi is the birthplace of Japan's modern steel industry. After experiencing two huge tsunami in modern times — in 1896 and 1933 — it became the first target of the U.S. naval bombardment of Honshu in the closing days of the war.