Japan 1945: A U.S. Marine's Photographs From Ground Zero
- Book Review,
by Mark Seldon (Foreword), Joe O'Donnell
From Booklist
O'Donnell, a 23-year-old Marine Corps photographer, was sent to Japan in September 1945 to document the impact of the war, especially the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He took thousands of official photographs that disappeared into military archives, and shot several hundred with his own camera, but he was so appalled by all that he had seen, he locked his photographs in a trunk for 45 years. O'Donnell worked as a White House photographer, suffered illness and disability from his exposure to radiation, and remained haunted by the devastation and suffering he witnessed. Finally, in the 1990s, he exhibited his photographs in Europe and Japan, and now, at long last, 74 of his powerful black-and-white photographs are being made available in the U.S. for the first time, during a time of war, increased nuclear threats, and heightened awareness of photography's role in warfare. Not only do O'Donnell's tragically beautiful photographs capture a hell on earth, they also embody his profound compassion and respect, making his haunting images precious not only as documentation but also as works of art. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
In September 1945 Joe O’Donnell was a twenty-three-year-old Marine Corps photographer wading ashore in Japan, then under American occupation. His orders were to document the aftermath of U.S. bombing raids in Japanese cities, including not only Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but also cities such as Sasebo, one of the more than sixty Japanese cities firebombed before the atomic blasts. "The people I met," he now recalls, "the suffering I witnessed, and the scenes of incredible devastation taken by my camera caused me to question every belief I had previously held about my so-called enemies." In addition to the official photographs he turned over to his superiors, O’Donnell recorded some three hundred images for himself, but following his discharge from the Marines he could not bear to look at them. He put the negatives in a trunk that remained unopened until 1989, when he finally felt compelled to confront once more what he had he had seen through his lens during his seven months in postwar Japan. Now, for this remarkable book, seventy-four of these photographs have been assembled. The images of destruction—a panorama of Ground Zero at Nagasaki, a lone building still standing near the Aioi Bridge at Hiroshima, a fourteen-year-old burn victim lying in a coma—are, of course, wrenching beyond words. But the book includes hopeful images as well, and these are equally affecting—children playing on a road, young girls carrying their infant siblings on their backs as they go about everyday routines, geishas performing a traditional dance, Marine boots mingled with Japanese sandals outside a church entrance. Exhibited in Europe and Japan during the 1990s, O’Donnell’s photographs were first published in book form in a 1995 Japanese edition. This edition, the first to appear in the United States, includes an additional twenty photographs and will bring O’Donnell’s eloquent testament to the horrors of war to an even wider audience.
About the Author
Joe O’Donnell was a White House Photographer for twenty years. At another moment of national trauma, he photographed Mrs. Kennedy I her bloodstained pink suit on Air Force One and John-John saluting his father’s casket. Mark Selden's books include The Atomic Bomb: Voices From Hiroshima and Nagasaki (with Kyoko Selden) and Living with the Bomb: American and Japanese Cultural Conflicts in the Nuclear Age (with Laura Hein). He teaches sociology and history at Binghamton University.
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