This set of photos of Hiroshima in 1945 were recently released by the Hoover Institution Archives. Apparently the photographer is unknown, but I imagine him (or her) to be like some of the others in the background of this one—normal people, caught up so thoroughly in a situation so horrid that they can’t help but stare.
Unsurprisingly, given the subject matter, these are pretty graphic. Not for dinnertime or the faint of heart. I think they are still worth viewing, especially for those of us who far post-date the only use of atomic weaponry. In 1945, when these pictures were taken, my grandmother was nine years old. As a schoolchild, I learned that the atomic bombs ended the War in the Pacific, and I learned about the legion of hard-working scientists, hidden in the desert, who developed those weapons. Lest you think my education was entirely one-sided, I also learned about radiation sickness, and I understood intellectually that thousands of people had died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Now, I work for a defense contractor - I’m not a nuclear physicist, but it doesn’t feel like too much of a stretch to compare my work to that of the Los Alamos scientists. The culture I live and work in says that it’s vital to keep America strong, safe, and preeminent—at least partly through superior technology. It is important, therefore, that I remember what that superior technology can do if we ever have to use it.
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