Photos - Bombed Out Japanese City

[Mr. Scratch]

These came from a Marine who was on Iwo, and then on Japan for the occupation at Sasebo. I assume this is Nagasaki. Can anyone confirm/deny?

(Lots of pictures - sorry if you're on dial-up.)

[Mr. Scratch]

Guess I stumped you guys. Forced to do get off my butt and do actual research on my own, I discovered that the photos are indeed of Nagasaki. The building that appears on the hillside is the ruins of the Shiroyama Primary School, also seen on this website.

http://www.nagasaki-city.ed.jp/shiro...bakukousya.htm

[Rich Moran]

Theres a book out there called "The First Into Nagasaki" by George Weller who is a Pulitzer Prize- winning reporter.

What is interesting to read in this work is what caused the massive firestorm was not the bomb itself, but when the device was dropped, it was cooking time for lunch throughout the city.

At that time of the war, the cooking was done over charcol fires. When the device went off above the city, the force from the detonation blew the city over, and scattered all the charcol which then ignited the wood constructed city. What you see left did not burn because of the steel construction. Then of course with so many fires, the water delivery system depended on fabric hoses, so the fireman could not do anything but watch the city go up in smoke.

He goes on to report about the citizenry being burned and also the fact that the nuclear event burned the white blood cells, and if one had cut, it would not clot and they would bleed to death. Some of course, had massive burns from the fires, and then there were those that indeed were vaporized by the blast, and that was in the direct center.

Then he writes also about the various POW camps and the Allied survivors. Their story is the most interesting part of the read, but becomes redundant in the facts of their miserable ordeals. These vets were so happy to see and then realize the end was at hand for their enslavers, but still feared a final death from their captors.

One part has its hold yet today, and that is the fact of Mitsui Industries still not settleing with these vets who were enslaved in their mines.

Mitsui sells steel and other things produced from these mines, and with that look around at what you read with, drive, watch TV on, Mitsui is involved.

Not wanting to go further with my thoughts, if anyone has an interest in what happened there, this book is a good read.

Thanks for showing the images as these things should not be kept from
the light of day.

[Mr. Scratch]

Thanks for showing the images as these things should not be kept from
the light of day.

I ended up selling them on eBay; they were purchased by the archives of the City of Nagasaki. I would have thought they had quite enough of such pics, but evidently they found something of interest in them.