IMAGES FREE TO USE
Rare Hiroshima Photo Collection
Displayed at Scotland’s Secret Bunker
Scotland’s Secret Bunker today unveiled a collection of
extremely rare and haunting photographs that captured the immediate aftermath
of the deadly Hiroshima nuclear attack, marking the 70th anniversary
of the Hiroshima bombing. It is the first time the collection, which captures
the devastating effects of an atomic bomb, is understood to have ever been displayed
in its entirety anywhere in the world.
The photographs emerged 10 years ago, thousands of miles
from the devastation of Hiroshima, in a small Fife town when local man, John
Ferns of Coaltown of Balgonie, revealed the incredibly rare photo collection that
captures one of the most infamous acts of war in recent history. Mr Ferns’ late
father, Clifford Fern, had stumbled across the undeveloped film of photographs
after buying a second hand camera while serving in the RAF in Iwakuni, 15 miles
outside Hiroshima, six months after the bombings in 1946.
It is believed the camera’s original owner had succumbed to
the radiation after taking the photos, as nobody could have survived the
radiation levels within the area of impact so soon after the bombing. The
photos capture the utter devastation to the landscape and decimation of
buildings, but also the ghostly and harrowing images of survivors of the
initial blast.
At least 200,000 people were killed in total by the atomic
bomb, including those killed instantly, and the many thousands who succumbed to
radiation poisoning in the weeks, months and years that followed the attack.
The display will open this morning, exactly 70 years since
the attack on Hiroshima, which took place at 8.15am on Thursday 6th
August, 1945. There are copies of 11 images on display and the exhibition will
also be showing the critically
acclaimed and controversial film, The War Game (1965), commissioned by the BBC
and directed by Peter Watkins, which depicts the fictional aftermath of a
nuclear event.
The film
was banned from being released by the BBC for over 20 years, though it did
appear as a cinematic release which earned the film an Academy Award for Best
Documentary Feature in 1966. It was eventually broadcast to the public on 31
July 1985, forty years after the Hiroshima bombing took place.
James Mitchell, Owner of Scotland’s Secret Bunker,
commented:
“It is an immense privilege to display this rare and important
collection of images at Scotland’s Secret Bunker. There are very few
photographs of Hiroshima in the days after the bombing, so these images are as
close as people can get to understanding the true nature and utter devastation
of the nuclear attack. We hope that visitors will come here to observe, reflect
and learn more about the events of 70 years ago.”
For more information on
Scotland’s Secret Bunker visit www.secretbunker.co.uk