Monday, August 09, 2010

Rorschach Slide Shot / Nagasaki Remembrance














I. I took this slide transparency shot in 1981. What does it look like to you? Anything jump to mind?

II. August 9 is Nagasaki Day, a commemoration of one of the Disasters of War. It was certainly not a highpoint in human evolution when the crew of Bockscar dropped Fat Man on the city of Nagasaki, killing or mortally maiming 80,000 people, mostly civilians, on August 9, 1945. Always worth noting -- Nagasaki is too often overshadowed by Hiroshima.

As fate or luck would have it, the city of Kokura escaped atomic attack twice: first as a secondary target, secondly as the primary target.

Today's Rune: Defense.

4 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

It evokes a sense of a post apocalyptic landscape. Maybe it's the color.

Johnny Yen said...

I've seen many historical objects, but the one I was most moved by was Bock's Car, the B-29 that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki, which is at the Wright-Patterson AFB museum in Ohio. As I mentioned on your Facebook post, I commented to my son that it's my fondest hope that it will be the last airplane to drop an atomic bomb in anger.

I also mentioned the small unfortunate group of people who evacuated from Hirsohima to Nagasaki and had the misfortune to endure two atomic bombs.

jodi said...

Erik, it's the end of the world as we know it....Cool pic!

Erik Donald France said...

I'm pretty sure this was taken at Dunkirk; the coloring is a weird aberration, I suppose. It was wet and foggy and eerie.