The Snapshots in Time Collection
American Serviceman Overlooking Bombed-Out Japanese City, Postwar Japan
A man stands on a roadway overlooking the ruins of a Japanese neighborhood destroyed during the Second World War, its buildings reduced to scattered foundations and its trees stripped bare by fire. Photographs like this one, taken by American servicemen during the occupation of Japan, document the scale of destruction wrought by Allied bombing campaigns and were often kept as personal mementos in postwar photo albums. Project: 218332