In his Feb. 23 letter, "Don't wait up for a U.S. apology," Paul Gaysford criticizes Jeff Kingston's Feb. 16 Counterpoint article, "Tokyo firebombings and unfinished U.S. business," for calling on the United States to apologize for its indiscriminate air raids during World War II, including the Tokyo firebombings in March 1945.
My view is that the U.S. does not need to apologize. All we expect is that the U.S. admit it committed atrocities comparable to, or exceeding, those of Japan and that it was not innocent.
The air raid on Naha on Oct. 10, 1944, known in Okinawa as the Great Naha Air Raid, was the precursor of indiscriminate attacks on 67 Japanese cities that were reduced to ashes, where an estimated 500,000 civilians were killed and another 400,000 wounded.
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.