Photos of Nagasaki In 1946 Discovered At U.S. Archives

Above, the monument marking the hypocenter (or blast center) of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki in 2007.  Photo by Armand Vaquer.

My last blog post was on Hiroshima, this one is on Nagasaki.

The Asahi Shimbun's "Asia & Japan Watch" posted that 40 photos of the destruction and recovery efforts in Nagasaki, that were taken in 1946, were recently discovered at the U.S. Archives and Records Administration.

They wrote:

NAGASAKI--Photographs of the destruction and recovery efforts in Nagasaki a year after the 1945 atomic bombing were recently discovered at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, the Nagasaki city government said Oct. 17. 

The 40 pictures were shot in late 1946 by Paul Henshaw, a biophysical scientist who was involved in the Manhattan Project. Henshaw was visiting Japan to help establish the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, a research institute to investigate the long-term effects of radiation exposure.

One of the photographs posted shows the blast center (or hypocenter) of the atomic bomb. It is interesting to contrast that photograph with one I took in 2007 (at top of this blog post) at the same location.

To see six of the photos and read the article, go here.