God, love, and war: Hiroshima, Atsugi, Yokohama (not necessarily in that order)

the tokyo files: media 東京ファイル・メディア

The Hiroshima Dome:

We all know about the atomic bomb that destroyed this building and the city.

And there’s this: the Trinity Site, the range where the first atomic bomb was tested.

The Hiroshima Dome and the Trinity Site are sister cities of destruction, and also of rebirth. Hiroshima today is a genuinely pleasant and “normal” city. Go visit!

Hiroshima is a concentrated metaphor for the entire country’s post-war rebirth. That rebirth can be said to have started at Atsugi Air Force Base 厚木海軍飛行場, where General MacArthur, the architect of the Occupation, landed at the end of August, 1945.

Here is a recent photograph of fighter plans leaving or returning to the base.

And here is a gate to the base (map).

The presence of American military facilities in Japan is sometimes hard to believe; according to one source:

“There are approximately 90 U.S. military facilities including major military bases throughout mainland…

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