The International Center of Photography has opened an exhibition of photographs taken to document the destruction of Hiroshima by the atomic bomb dropped on August 6, 1945. Long classified, these images are now presented for public viewing.
A slide show of images from the exhibit is also available at the New York Times Magazine.
Photograph by the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Physical Damage Division, [Rooftop view of atomic destruction, looking southwest, Hiroshima], October 31, 1945. International Center of Photography.
“Only buildings were damaged,” that’s the message. Too bad they didn’t include some of the photos I’ve seen in Kurosawa documentaries which show bodies littering the landscape looking like grey logs after a forest fire.
All of the photographs in the exhibition are drawn from the United States Strategic Bombing Survey’s Physical Damage Division, which was part of Military Studies. Their assignment was to collect, analyze, and evaluate structural, rather than human, damage, caused by the atomic bomb. Other agencies conducted Economic and Civilian Studies, which included photographs, but the International Center of Photography does not have those photographs.