Photographers that documented nuclear devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

[Mainecoonmaniac]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/06/world/asia/hiroshima-nagasaki-japan-photos.html

 

[jtk]

http://www.spoon-tamago.com/2020/08...iroshima/?mc_cid=06e8565ea3&mc_eid=7d3e2d4b11

 

[Irrev.Rev.]

Just as an aside, my father-in-law, a Navy Photographer, accompanied some "Brass" to document the aftermath of bombings. He remained a commercial photographer for many years but would never photograph people, never, despite many opportunities. While never discussed, I thought that the trauma of such carnage left too vivid a memory!
PJ

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Just as an aside, my father-in-law, a Navy Photographer, accompanied some "Brass" to document the aftermath of bombings. He remained a commercial photographer for many years but would never photograph people, never, despite many opportunities. While never discussed, I thought that the trauma of such carnage left too vivid a memory!
PJ

I’m sure he was mentally scarred from photographing the horrific aftermath of the bomb.

 

[guangong]

Reminder: Keep in mind that those cheerful colonized people, following the bushido doctrines of the Japanese militarists, were destined to provide last ditch resistance to invading allied forces. Determined to avoid an unconditional surrender with the aid of savage civilian resistance, even after two atomic bombs there was reluctance to surrender. Japan also intended to retain Manchuria within the empire after cessation of hostilities. Only when the supposedly invincible crack Kwangtung army quickly collapsed from Soviet and Mongolian forces did emperor see the hopelessness of continued fighting and order hostilities to cease. By the way, he did not order a surrender, that came later.

Should anybody, including those in photographs, have disobeyed the authorities they would have quickly disappeared into police custody.

People are people in their normal daily lives. The real story behind these pictures are the horrors of totalitarian societies. Good people caught up in a web of suffering not of their making.
I knew Japanese who were arrested then for carrying the wrong book. For a good sense of this period watch some of Kurasawa’s wartime propaganda movies, or better still Kobayashi’s magnificent film Human Condition (now available on You Tube). When Toho Cinema had a theater in NYC during early 1960s and screened it, one saw many Japanese leaving the theater heads downcast and ashamed of the brutality depicted. Such is the conclusion of political correctness.

 

[jtk]

Reminder: Keep in mind that those cheerful colonized people, following the bushido doctrines of the Japanese militarists, were destined to provide last ditch resistance to invading allied forces. Determined to avoid an unconditional surrender with the aid of savage civilian resistance, even after two atomic bombs there was reluctance to surrender. Japan also intended to retain Manchuria within the empire after cessation of hostilities. Only when the supposedly invincible crack Kwangtung army quickly collapsed from Soviet and Mongolian forces did emperor see the hopelessness of continued fighting and order hostilities to cease. By the way, he did not order a surrender, that came later.

Should anybody, including those in photographs, have disobeyed the authorities they would have quickly disappeared into police custody.

People are people in their normal daily lives. The real story behind these pictures are the horrors of totalitarian societies. Good people caught up in a web of suffering not of their making.
I knew Japanese who were arrested then for carrying the wrong book. For a good sense of this period watch some of Kurasawa’s wartime propaganda movies, or better still Kobayashi’s magnificent film Human Condition (now available on You Tube). When Toho Cinema had a theater in NYC during early 1960s and screened it, one saw many Japanese leaving the theater heads downcast and ashamed of the brutality depicted. Such is the conclusion of political correctness.

Thank you for your historic observations.

 

[Arthurwg]

I have a copy of "Hiroshima: Ground Zero 1945," published by ICP in 2011. Fantastic book of commentary and photos. Every school child should see a copy. While I guess I can accept that the first bomb was somehow "necessary," I believe the second was an act of pure sadistic barbarism. I know there is an argument that it was needed to end the war, but I can't accept that.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Reminder: Keep in mind that those cheerful colonized people, following the bushido doctrines of the Japanese militarists, were destined to provide last ditch resistance to invading allied forces. Determined to avoid an unconditional surrender with the aid of savage civilian resistance, even after two atomic bombs there was reluctance to surrender. Japan also intended to retain Manchuria within the empire after cessation of hostilities. Only when the supposedly invincible crack Kwangtung army quickly collapsed from Soviet and Mongolian forces did emperor see the hopelessness of continued fighting and order hostilities to cease. By the way, he did not order a surrender, that came later.

Should anybody, including those in photographs, have disobeyed the authorities they would have quickly disappeared into police custody.

People are people in their normal daily lives. The real story behind these pictures are the horrors of totalitarian societies. Good people caught up in a web of suffering not of their making.
I knew Japanese who were arrested then for carrying the wrong book. For a good sense of this period watch some of Kurasawa’s wartime propaganda movies, or better still Kobayashi’s magnificent film Human Condition (now available on You Tube). When Toho Cinema had a theater in NYC during early 1960s and screened it, one saw many Japanese leaving the theater heads downcast and ashamed of the brutality depicted. Such is the conclusion of political correctness.

Yes. My family was in Guangdong China during WW II. They were refugees fleeing the Japanese. After the war, they left China to escape Communist China. They saw a lot.

 

[guangong]

I have a copy of "Hiroshima: Ground Zero 1945," published by ICP in 2011. Fantastic book of commentary and photos. Every school child should see a copy. While I guess I can accept that the first bomb was somehow "necessary," I believe the second was an act of pure sadistic barbarism. I know there is an argument that it was needed to end the war, but I can't accept that.

Necessary or not, millions of lives were saved, both Japanese and allies.
By the way, what would have been your solution?
Normandy, as expensive in lives and treasure as it was, would have seemed like a minor exercise compared to invading Japan, where civilians as well as military would have given brutal resistance. One possibility, if the war had dragged on, may well have been a country divided, like Korea, after Stalin broke neutrality pact with Japan.
Sometimes there is simply no convenient solution.

 

[guangong]

Yes. My family was in Guangdong China during WW II. They were refugees fleeing the Japanese. After the war, they left China to escape Communist China. They saw a lot.

For part of the war my late wife was with her father, who raised his own forces in Guandong to fight against Japanese forces, then she was taken to neutral Macao. The film I mentioned, Human Condition, shows just how the Japanese militarists brutalized their own soldiers so that in turn they would brutalize local populations.

 

[Arthurwg]

Necessary or not, millions of lives were saved, both Japanese and allies.
By the way, what would have been your solution?
Normandy, as expensive in lives and treasure as it was, would have seemed like a minor exercise compared to invading Japan, where civilians as well as military would have given brutal resistance. One possibility, if the war had dragged on, may well have been a country divided, like Korea, after Stalin broke neutrality pact with Japan.
Sometimes there is simply no convenient solution.

Well for starters I would have waited more than three days.....

 

[removedacct1]

David Wargowski is a nuclear historian, and he's been publishing hundreds of documentary photos of the early atomic tests on his Instagram account, many of them documenting the 75th anniversary of the Trinity test in July of 1945. He's made many, many obscure and rare photos available on his IG feed. Here is a link to his web site: https://atomicphotographers.com/photographers/david-wargowski/

 

[guangong]

Well for starters I would have waited more than three days.....

How many days do you have in mind? After first bomb, militarists decided to hold out. If they believed there was only one bomb, why surrender. After second bomb, they were still undecided. Loss of Manchuria was decisive. The militarists were determined to sacrifice the total Japanese population in their fanaticism. These guys were not humanists concerned about the welfare of their people, but domination of the inferior people of Asia by the racially superior Japanese. Fortunately, this attitude has virtually disappeared in Japan.

 

[foc]

Fanaticism is always blind to anything but its own view.
And very hard to defeat............ sometimes it takes a fanatic to defeat one because reason and logic don't apply.

 

[Arthurwg]

How many days do you have in mind? After first bomb, militarists decided to hold out. If they believed there was only one bomb, why surrender. After second bomb, they were still undecided. Loss of Manchuria was decisive. The militarists were determined to sacrifice the total Japanese population in their fanaticism. These guys were not humanists concerned about the welfare of their people, but domination of the inferior people of Asia by the racially superior Japanese. Fortunately, this attitude has virtually disappeared in Japan.

You may be right. And I understand the Chinese had their own perspective on this.

 

[MartinCrabtree]

My father allowed me to watch the declassified films from Hiroshima/Nagasaki in the early '70s. It profoundly affected my outlook and I believe that was his intention. I also read a book called Children of The A-Bomb in middle school which reinforced that viewpoint. Nuclear weapons are our biggest mistake. I will not second guess Truman and company for doing what they felt necessary however I truly wish that genie would have remained in prison. We squander so much with stupid arguments which are never settled even though so many die.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/06/world/asia/hiroshima-nagasaki-japan-photos.html

what a terrible crime!

 

[beemermark]

My father allowed me to watch the declassified films from Hiroshima/Nagasaki in the early '70s. It profoundly affected my outlook and I believe that was his intention. I also read a book called Children of The A-Bomb in middle school which reinforced that viewpoint. Nuclear weapons are our biggest mistake. I will not second guess Truman and company for doing what they felt necessary however I truly wish that genie would have remained in prison. We squander so much with stupid arguments which are never settled even though so many die.

I always think about how many people have been killed with conventional weapons. for the citizens of Japan did it matter it they were killed by bombs, bullets, fire bombing, or two nuclear bombs. Estimated number of Japanese killed in WWII is 2.5~3.1 million. I for one never quite understand the horror people feel about the two we dropped in Japan. It ended the war.

 

[mooseontheloose]

These guys were not humanists concerned about the welfare of their people, but domination of the inferior people of Asia by the racially superior Japanese. Fortunately, this attitude has virtually disappeared in Japan.

I won’t argue about the domination part, but the idea of the racially superior Japanese is still alive and well here in Japan. The COVID-19 crisis has made that plain to every long-term foreign resident, who is either locked in or locked out of the country, and have been since April. But that s another issue entirely.

The real problem in Japan is that the younger generation is taught only that Japan was a victim in the war, and they learn nothing, or very little, of the aggression that came before and during it. I’ve had students come to me in tears once they learn about incidents like the Rape of Nanking, because they had no idea that Japanese could do such things. And these same kids think it’s okay for the government to change the constitution to allow the country to re-militarize itself, not really understanding what it means. It’s the older generations who are pushing back hard against these changes, because they sure remember what it was like.

Back to the OP, I thought the article and photos were quite good. I used to live in Hiroshima and had students were bomb survivors. One older student of mine told me that after the bomb, his mother and siblings went searching for his father. Because he was only 2 at the time, he was left home with a neighbour. They never found his father, but over the years, every one of his family members, including his baby brother who was in the womb at the time, were riddled with cancer for the rest of their lives. All except him, because he was left at home. It’s not easy living with a dark past.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

For part of the war my late wife was with her father, who raised his own forces in Guandong to fight against Japanese forces, then she was taken to neutral Macao. The film I mentioned, Human Condition, shows just how the Japanese militarists brutalized their own soldiers so that in turn they would brutalize local populations.

I think this shows the problems of leaders not caring for their soldiers and Japanese citizens. This shows the old Chinese observation "Mandate of Heaven". Back then, the Japanese citizens loyally obeyed it's leaders that didn't lead them well. In the process, hundreds of thousands of Japanese suffered. The Americans, Chinese and Japanese are taught different versions of the history of what happened.

 

[Arthurwg]

I always think about how many people have been killed with conventional weapons. for the citizens of Japan did it matter it they were killed by bombs, bullets, fire bombing, or two nuclear bombs. Estimated number of Japanese killed in WWII is 2.5~3.1 million. I for one never quite understand the horror people feel about the two we dropped in Japan. It ended the war.

Part of the problem is that the dead were mostly all civilians.

 

[Arthurwg]

BTW, the US "Embargo Act of 1941," which is often given as a reason for Pearl Harbor, is rarely discussed.

 

[Hatchetman]

BTW, the US "Embargo Act of 1941," which is often given as a reason for Pearl Harbor, is rarely discussed.

And what was the purpose of that act?

 

[beemermark]

And what was the purpose of that act?

Short (and very generalized) answer, it cut off Japan's oil supplies. A good book that presents both sides of WWII of the US against Japan is Flag of our Fathers by James Bradley.

 

[mshchem]

Fanaticism is always blind to anything but its own view.
And very hard to defeat............ sometimes it takes a fanatic to defeat one because reason and logic don't apply.

True, but at least one of the fanatics needs to know he's a fanatic, otherwise it never ends.