March 9, 1945: 334 B-29s dropping incendiaries destroy 267,000 buildings; 25% of city (Operation Meetinghouse) killing some 100,000, burned many houses in Tokyo into ashes. The raids in postwar Japanese politics In 2007, Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzō apologized in print, acknowledging Japan's guilt in the bombing of Chinese cities and civilians beginning in 1938. He wrote that the Japanese government should have surrendered as soon as losing the war was inevitable, an action that would have prevented Tokyo from being firebombed in March 1945, as well as subsequent bombings of other cities. However, during his second term as prime minister, in 2013 Abe's cabinet stated that the raids were "incompatible with humanitarianism, which is one of the foundations of international law", while noting that it is difficult to argue that the raids were illegal under the international laws of the time. In 2007, 112 members of the Association for the Bereaved Families of the Victims of the Tokyo Air Raids brought a class action against the Japanese government, demanding an apology and 1,232 million yen in compensation. Their suit charged that the Japanese government invited the raid by failing to end the war earlier, and then failed to help the civilian victims of the raids while providing considerable support to former military personnel and their families. The plaintiffs' case was dismissed at the first judgment in December 2009, and their appeal was rejected. The plaintiffs then appealed to the Supreme Court, which rejected their case in May 2013.