On June 19, 1945, a U.S. firebombing raid on the city of Fukuoka killed over 1,000 people and changed the course of one man’s life.
The next day, Army Paymaster Kentaro Toji, grieving the loss of his mother in the attack, volunteered to execute four captured American airmen.
Convicted as a Class B/C war criminal after the war, Toji was initially sentenced to death in 1948, but later had his sentence reduced to life imprisonment and was released in 1958.
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