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Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake) | Q 779.994 ODO | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
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."
Author Notes
For more than twenty years, Joe O'Donnell worked for the United States Information Agency, photographing U.S. presidents, world leaders, and unfolding history. When he died in 2007, controversy erupted over his mistaken claims late in life to several iconic photographs of Truman and the Kennedys. The photographs in Japan 1945 are from the 4x5 negatives in the possession of his widow.
Reviews (3)
Booklist Review
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 2005 Booklist
Choice Review
Before becoming a White House photographer, O'Donnell was a Marine Corps photographer whose assignment in 1945 was to record the aftermath of US bombing raids on Japanese cities. The civilian population had no Picasso to paint a Hiroshima or a Nagasaki, and as Mark Selden writes in his foreword to O'Donnell's photographs, "The history of the photography of the atomic bomb, no less than of documentary and fictional writing, is one of official censorship." As it is, Japan 1945 constitutes a rare visual document of the atomic bombings of Japanese cities in 1945. These images, selected among 300 that O'Donnell "recorded for himself," escaped censorship, and the selection used in the book has a life-goes-on approach to the results of the devastation undergone by the martyr cities and their civilian populations. The foreword acknowledges O'Donnell's intention not to document human atrocities. Except for a few photographs ("Burn Victim"), the only images of devastation are panoramic views of the rubble that the bombed cities had become. Half of the images deal with healthy-looking survivors, including performing geishas, and US soldiers fraternizing with the local population. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. All levels. B. P. Chalifour SUNY College at Brockport
Library Journal Review
In 1941, 19-year-old O'Donnell enlisted in the marines and four years later was sent to photograph the fire- and atomic-bombing destruction in western Japan. Though his official images have disappeared, the 74 remarkable black-and-white photos shown here are some of the 300 he captured with his own camera and daily developed in makeshift field labs, sometimes using his helmet and liner for the chemicals, nearby streams to wash the negatives, and trees to hang them dry. The images include shots of fellow marines aboard ship during the landing at Sasebo Harbor, but the bulk of the photos are of Nagasaki, including an astonishing panoramic picture of the wasteland it had become. O'Donnell found the photos so devastating that he hid them away in a trunk when he returned stateside, vowing never again to look at them. After a 20-year stint as White House photographer (he captured the image of Jacqueline Kennedy in her blood-stained pink suit on Air Force One and John Jr. saluting his father's casket), he retired with a medical disability later discovered to have been caused by his radiation exposure. This stunning work, which focuses more on the reconstruction than does Yosuke Yamahata's Nagasaki Journey, is essential for all World War II collections.-Dale Farris, Groves, TX (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
