The footage taken by my father’s crew represents the only record in living color of the devastation wrought by the atom bomb, not only on the targeted cities but, most importantly, on its people. For that reason, the U.S. Government quickly decided that the film should not be seen by the public, lest it turn against further expansion of U.S. nuclear power. But long before the American crew arrived, courageous Japanese photographers and filmmakers recorded the realities for people “under mushroom clouds.” The U.S. Occupation seized all the images they could obtain and imposed a Press Code to prevent dissemination.
Even now, these images are little known in America. A recent article by Mike Ives in the New York Times presented some of the most compelling of these images. While they are in black-and-white and now 75 years old, their emotional force is undiminished.
