Kirk here with some photos shared earlier in a comment by Billy Bento (thanks Billy!). The photos show some of the devastation of Kumamoto toward the end of WWII. More famous tragedies (Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the fire bombing of Tokyo, etc.) seem to have caused what happened in Kumamoto to get less attention than it otherwise would have. While Kumamoto’s experience may seem insignificant in comparison to that of Hiroshima, for example, accounts I have read in Japanese have helped me understand how horrible the end of the war was for many of the people here.
By the way, speaking of Hiroshima, I heard an interesting interview on NPR (public read in the US) about John Hersey’s report. Highly recommended. Here’s the URL for that:
‘Fallout’ Tells The Story Of The Journalist Who Exposed The ‘Hiroshima Cover-Up’ https://www.npr.org/2021/08/06/1025059199/fallout-tells-the-story-of-the-journalist-who-exposed-the-hiroshima-cover-up
