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Air raid drill, Asakura Temple, Tokyo.

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Air raid drill, Asakura Temple, Tokyo.

AP

Buddhist monks and civil defence workers conduct an air raid/poison gas attack. This drill (almost incredibly) was part of a civil defence programme provoked by the hotting-up of hostilities between China and Japan (provoked by the latter) in 1936. The Asakura (Senso-Ji) Temple was/is an ancient Buddhist (typically, with Shinto elements) temple, the oldest in Tokyo and one adopted as a particular site of devotion by the Tokugawa Shogunate. Gas attacks proved to be the least of its problems. The Temple was completely destroyed in the USAAF's fire bombings of Tokyo, but has since been rebuilt in a manner faithful to the original. Best regards, JR.

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6/18/2011

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