Hiroshima

1945 · A36364 — Hiroshima Japan: USGS. Very Good. 1945. Photograph. Hiroshima: United States Strategic Bomb Survey circa 1945. 2 black and white gelatin silver print photographs measuring approx. 4" x 5". There are typed captions on the reverse of each print. One print includes a large ink stamped image of the Hiroshima- Matsuyama Ferry Line. These two photographs are official United States Strategic Bomb Survey damage prints of Hiroshima USSBS captured on November 28 1945. One print shows the exterior view of the Chugoka Coal Distribution Control Company building #12 in the survey the other photograph has a caption of "Building 300 ft. NWW from GZ no Structural Damage. Both photographs include latitude and longitude coordinates. "Verbal and written accounts of the destruction of Hiroshima by atomic bomb on August 6 1945 are well known but photographic images of it have always been relatively rare. While the U. S. Government attempted to control the circulation of any such images following the end of World War II the irony is that it was also the source of the largest body of photographs of the aftermath of the event. That work made in 1945 for the United States Strategic Bombing Survey — initially classified and subsequently lost for more than 40 years.Photographers in the Physical Damage Division of the Survey were tasked with documenting the broad extent and mundane detail of atomic destruction for later analysis by architects and civil engineers. The images they made helped form the basis for civil defense architecture in the U. S. especially in the early part of the Cold War from the design of bomb and fallout shelters to suburbanization." . USGS unknown