This photograph, preserved in a personal WWII-era album, documents the catastrophic devastation of Hiroshima following the atomic bombing of August 6, 1945. A scorched, defoliated tree stands amid a vast field of rubble where a residential district once stood, while a few reinforced-concrete buildings remain standing in the distance, a stark testament to the disparity in survival between structural types. Images such as this were often taken by American servicemen present during the early occupation of Japan, serving as both personal mementos and historical documentation of one of the twentieth century's most consequential events. Project: 218248