Lot 13 Dα

With an accompanying letter by W. H. P. Blandy, Commander of Joint Task force ONE, addressed to Captain A. C. Thorington, U.S. Navy, Commanding Officer, dated September 17, 1946.

The nuclear bomb tests 'Able' and 'Baker' carried out within a few weeks by the USA on the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean in the summer of 1946 marked the beginning of the Cold War and went down in history as 'Operation Crossroads'. While the tests were conducted for scientific research into the effects of nuclear explosions on the operational capability of warships and military equipment, a special feature of the operation was that it was the first of its kind to take place publicly before the eyes of world: the US military hired several hundred photographers and cameramen and invited journalists from all over the world to document the explosions. The massive PR work of the 'Joint Army Task Force One' responsible for the operation must be considered against the background that the tests were not least a demonstration of power directed at the Soviet Union.
State-of-the-art photographic technology was used, including high-speed cameras, which made it possible to record the rapid spread of the fireballs in fractions of a second. Numerous cameras were placed not only on the islands of the atoll and on ships, where elaborate constructions protected them from the radioactive radiation. Installed in airplanes and unmanned drones, they captured the moment of the explosions from the air.
'It left me staring open-mouthed. I was so moved I could hardly write intelligible notes,' is how journalist Philip Porter describes his reaction to the sight he sees (as quoted by Weisgall, loc.cit., p. 222). The purely aesthetic form of the explosions - less than twelve months after the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - made the aspect of their deadly destructive power recede into the background. The visual appeal of the objects, which are open to diverse visual associations, is undisputed. The equally horrifying and fascinating shots of atomic explosions pertain to the key images of the 20th century, which - despite or because of their ambivalence - were eventually to find their way into the visual arts and popular culture (cf. Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Stanley Kubrick among others).
As can be seen from the letter attached to the photographs up for auction here, the mixed lost was once the gift of a commander of the Joint Task Force One to a captain of the U.S. Navy involved in the operation.

Further images on request