1945年1月23日の稲沢空襲について,空中写真の解析と空襲体験者の証言から空襲の状況を検証した.米軍が戦後撮影した空中写真には稲沢空襲の際の爆弾跡(クレーター)が明瞭に残っており,54個が確認された.市街地に落下した爆弾を加えると投下された爆弾は全部で97個にのぼる.これらは1km四方の狭い範囲に分布していて,8ないし9機のB29より投下された.16個の焼夷爆弾落下地点が確認されたが,それらはほぼ2列に並ぶ線上に配列している.爆弾落下地点の予測計算から,爆弾投下は一宮市萩原町上空で開始されたと推定され,これは目撃証言と一致する.稲沢空襲では当時の特殊軽合金を第一目標とし,隣接する市街地も併せて爆撃した可能性が高い.

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Early building evacuations focused on cities critical to air defense, but the target cities were officially expanded in June 1945, and in reality, they were expanded around the end of 1944 to include small and medium-sized regional cities. The largest number of evacuated buildings was recorded around March 1945, when nighttime air raids on major cities were common. Although the project was implemented in many cities throughout Japan, the majority of evacuated buildings were concentrated in the industrial areas of Keihin, Keihanshin, Nagoya, and northern Kyushu.

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'FUKUYAMA KUUSYUUNO KIROKU' is collected writings by bombed out people of Fukuyama city by the U. S. Army Air Forces at Aug. 8 in 1945. Through descriptions of Fukuyama-city's landscape in bombed and flamed disaster, I try to make explicit reality of a landscape of the city. In such abnormal disaster, we may face to an unordinary but uncovered landscape compared with a daily familiar landscape covered by our own view. I characterize the later as 'actuality' of a landscape. The actuality of landscapes is in very close interrelation to knowledges and our representation. From zero degree of actuality to the extreme degree of actuality are discriminated in landscapes of the disaster by articulating writings of the disaster scene. Beyond and apart them by doubting them there seems to catch a glimpse of a landscape itself, namely 'reality of landscape' expressed as double exposured landscapes.

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In the early stage of the Pacific War, the British army suffered a humiliating defeat in Malaya, and the Royal Navy lost its capital ships. These events really shocked policy makers in Whitehall. Before the war, they did not believe that Japan would wage a war against Britain and the United States in spite of an ample evidence of Japanese intentions to expand toward South East Asia. British intelligence organization, such as the SIS (Secret Intelligence Service) and the intelligence divisions of each military service also failed to grasp Japanese military capabilities and her exact intentions. Policy makers and intelligence officers underestimated Japanese military performance and her intention toward Malaya and Singapore. Therefore this thesis will follow the reason why Britain failed to estimate Japanese capabilities properly.
As far as military intelligence concerned, such as NID (Naval Intelligence Division) and MI2c (Military Intelligence Section dealing with Asia) underestimated Japanese military capabilities, while they overestimated British troops in South East Asia. The military intelligence faced difficulties to collect information in Japan, mainly because of a Japanese counter intelligence. As a result, they constructed an image of Japanese troops that Japan was the second-class force compared with the British.
It was also difficult for SIS and FECB (Far Eastern Combined Bureau) to operate in the East Asia. They were suffered from lack of funds and personnel and it is said that the SIS Far East could not get useful information in this area. The FECB, code-breaking organization in Asia, succeeded in breaking several Japanese diplomatic and naval cipher. The FECB could estimate the Japanese potential capabilities and intentions to some extent, but unfortunately, reports from FECB were called ‘alarmist’ or ‘defeatist’ by staff officers and decision-makers in Whitehall.
However, there is a fundamental problem, why neither staff officers nor decision-makers in Whitehall and Singapore doubted that most of reports from intelligence services referred to only the deficiencies of Japanese troops. In fact, there were several reports, which stressed positive aspects of Japanese troops, but finally these reports were rejected as ‘unrealistic’. There appeared several reasons as follows why officers did not believe the positive reports; difficulties of two frontal wars in Europe and Asia, British ethnocentrism related with racial prejudice, and lack of specialists of Far Eastern affairs.
Finally not only decision-makers, but also intelligence officers did not believe that Japan would wage a war against Britain in 1941. Intelligence officers sent so many useless reports to Whitehall, and politicians did accept these incorrect reports undoubtedly and formed the Far Eastern strategy, which would lead the disaster of Singapore.

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