Ishikawa's ground level photograph, I
1 2020-04-30T18:05:48-04:00 Kate McDonald 306bb1134bc892ab2ada669bed7aecb100ef7d5f 35 3 Monpe-clad women and children in the aftermath of the raid plain 2021-08-18T10:11:27-04:00 1945 Tokyo daikūshū no zenkiroku. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 243, Section 2 (Japanese documents), 12h (Effects of Bombing on health and medical services—photographs and negatives), Box 136. Ishikawa Koyo Public domain. David Fedman DF-0019 Kate McDonald 306bb1134bc892ab2ada669bed7aecb100ef7d5fThis page is referenced by:
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2020-04-30T18:05:22-04:00
Documenting Destruction
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Ishikawa's photographs of the consequences of the firebombings (graphic imagery).
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2021-05-05T08:04:58-04:00
03/1945
David Fedman
Ishikawa, Kōyō
United States Army Air Force
To Ishikawa, it was only with sunrise that the magnitude of destruction came to light. Only then could he confirm that he was actually “in the land of the living.” Thus assured, Ishikawa began to photograph the aftermath, albeit reluctantly. The images he captured that morning are perhaps the best visual testament we have to the bodily scale of suffering. Charred corpses piled along thoroughfares and floating in canals; carbonized women and children; stunned survivors searching for family; still smoldering air raid shelters filled with asphyxiated bodies. When read against the abstract aerial photographs produced and disseminated by the USAAF to communicate, if not celebrate, the achievements of the raid, these images remind us of the humanity that lay below. They show us the corporeal consequences of bombardment.
