Iida Shojiro

The Capture of Mandalay

On the night of 3 April 1942, Japanese Mitsubishi bombers attacked the old royal city with incendiary bombs, creating a gigantic firestorm. Two-thirds of all the buildings in Mandalay were destroyed. It is estimated that up to 8,000 people may have died and many more were injured (out of a population of about 150,000). Blackened and rotting corpses filled the moat around Mandalay Palace. Everywhere in the searing hot-season heat was the smell of death. The city emptied. Clare Booth...