Hiroshima Mushroom Clouds by Bob Caron from Enola Gay

Fizzle Joined: Feb 22, 2012 Posts: 3

Hello,

I am new to this form and hope I'm posting in the right place. If not, please direct me to the right place.

I am attempting to find out what happened to the original negatives and photographs taken by Technical Sgt. Robert "Bob" Caron from the tailgunner position in the Enola Gay. As many of you know, the story is simply that Lt. Jerome J Ossip handed Caron a Fairchild K-20 camera as Caron was about to board Enola Gay and gave him quick instruction on how to use the camera. Caron is said to have taken 50 shots with the Fairchild, snapping one shot after another. When Ossip processed the film from all the cameras, he had been disappointed to find they contained none of the much described mushroom cloud until he processed Caron's film. I have read that many of the shots were deemed unuseable, having parts of the aircraft and such obscuring much of the cloud. Of the many images, Caron stated that seven were considered useable. I have six of these variations (and possibly have located a source for the seventh) but I am interested in finding out where the original negatives might be held. Excepting the very short 16mm film shot that Harold Agnew took on "The Great Artiste" (the fully formed mushroom cloud, after the cap had already been completely sheered away from the stem), Caron's images give us the most complete picture of how the mushroom cloud grew and changed.

In addition to Caron's official images taken with the K-20, he had also brought along his own personal camera and took (I'm told) four images in color. One, is noted on this thread

http://www.sonicbomb.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=618&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

I've been in touch with Russ Gackenback's representative and Russ said that in spite of this being attributed to him on the US Naval Institute's site, he did not take that. Russ took two shots with his Afga 620. Both of Gackenback's shots (I have them) are B&W and are of the mushroom cloud about 1 min after the explosion.

My question is this: where are the original negatives-- ALL of them-- from Caron's K-20 over Hiroshima?

Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2012 6:01 pm

Hi man...I´m the one who start that topic and posted that color picture.
Nice to know other people who have interest in the "Hiroshima Explosion Pictures Problem."
Hard to tell what happened to that negatives,67 years have passed since that day.May it had been lost or forgotten inside of someone´s drawer.
I think the only way is try to make contact with Caron´s family.
If you can find them, of course.

I noticed something too...excet for the Trinity and Beyond sequences,I never could find the COMPLETE Hiroshima explosion Film anywhere in the web. Sad

Can you share with us the pictures you have?

I know many people will say that the picture below is the Nagasaki explosion,but sometimes, is photo this described as the Hiroshima explosion...and,i believe that.

I found it too...
This video had a good sequence of th Hiroshima explosion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY9VwCE_Dsg&feature=related
Look at 11:03

One note:
This documentary shows the most accurate and correct description of the Little Boy inner workings yet.

Fizzle Joined: Feb 22, 2012 Posts: 3

Hi and thanks for replying to my post.

The footage you saw there in the National Geographic documentary is just about all there is. Harold Agnew shot that from The Great Artiste. I asked him and this is all he was able to get. The other motion picture film from the explosion was lost in processing.

I would also note that in watching this, it appears the film has been flipped. Most of the time, as in "Trinity and Beyond- The Atomic Bomb Movie," the film would appear to be playing incorrectly. When you watch it, if you look as he pans up and down on the mushroom cloud, you can see what appears to be one of the fingers of the dock projecting out into Hiroshima Bay. When I first saw this, I thought "oh, they must have circled the city and he's filming this from the opposite side." However, Agnew and Dutch Van Kirk state they never circled or orbited the city but rather flew in an arc pattern, NE to SE of the city. The conclusion I drew was that the film had to be flipped, possibly an error when they transferred??? Who knows.. there are errors in the Nat Geo documentary-- if I heard right, the narrator states the Enola Gay was only 2 miles above the city when the weapon was deployed. Negative-- try about 5 miles.

Dr. Agnew states that he was measuring blast and yield when the bomb went off. He shot those few seconds of the mushroom cloud sometime after the first and second shock waves past his plane. Judging from the fact that the mushroom cloud is fully formed and the cap has already been fully sheared away from the stem, I would put this at about 2-3 minutes after burst.

I have seen the photograph you posted attributed to both Nagasaki and Hiroshima. When this was posted on Wikipedia, I had it removed because that is an error. Library of Congress and others agree that this is Nagasaki. One visual dead giveaway is the amount of cloud cover. At the time of bombing, Hiroshima was only 1/10th's cloud cover and in this shot, there was a lot of cloud around the area. You see none of that in the known Caron photographs taken immediately after the explosion at Hiroshima.

What has surprised me is that there are far more photos of the Hiroshima cloud taken by Japanese that are known to exist. The Hiroshima Peace Museum sent me a partial list (the only one they had in English) and it was amazing to find dozens of shots taken by the Japanese.

Posted: Wed Feb 29, 2012 10:06 pm

Different version of the Bob Caron picture:

Fizzle Joined: Feb 22, 2012 Posts: 3

Yes, I have that image as well. It seems that when Ossip selected the best of Caron's views, they were distributed for various purposes. The more common view seen in books, magazines and in newspapers a few days after Hiroshima seems to have gone to US Press. A different view was printed on leaflets for dropping over Japan. Another view seems to have been sent for international press as I've found a Canadian newspaper that shows what I believe to be the earliest view of all.

Actually, most of the Japanese photographers who got shots of the mushroom cloud survived and their stories are well-documented in Japan.

Fizzle Joined: Jun 11, 2012 Posts: 5

FatMan69 wrote:

Hi and thanks for replying to my post.

The footage you saw there in the National Geographic documentary is just about all there is. Harold Agnew shot that from The Great Artiste. I asked him and this is all he was able to get. The other motion picture film from the explosion was lost in processing.

I would also note that in watching this, it appears the film has been flipped. Most of the time, as in "Trinity and Beyond- The Atomic Bomb Movie," the film would appear to be playing incorrectly. When you watch it, if you look as he pans up and down on the mushroom cloud, you can see what appears to be one of the fingers of the dock projecting out into Hiroshima Bay. When I first saw this, I thought "oh, they must have circled the city and he's filming this from the opposite side." However, Agnew and Dutch Van Kirk state they never circled or orbited the city but rather flew in an arc pattern, NE to SE of the city. The conclusion I drew was that the film had to be flipped, possibly an error when they transferred??? Who knows.. there are errors in the Nat Geo documentary-- if I heard right, the narrator states the Enola Gay was only 2 miles above the city when the weapon was deployed. Negative-- try about 5 miles.

Dr. Agnew states that he was measuring blast and yield when the bomb went off. He shot those few seconds of the mushroom cloud sometime after the first and second shock waves past his plane. Judging from the fact that the mushroom cloud is fully formed and the cap has already been fully sheared away from the stem, I would put this at about 2-3 minutes after burst.

I have seen the photograph you posted attributed to both Nagasaki and Hiroshima. When this was posted on Wikipedia, I had it removed because that is an error. Library of Congress and others agree that this is Nagasaki. One visual dead giveaway is the amount of cloud cover. At the time of bombing, Hiroshima was only 1/10th's cloud cover and in this shot, there was a lot of cloud around the area. You see none of that in the known Caron photographs taken immediately after the explosion at Hiroshima.

What has surprised me is that there are far more photos of the Hiroshima cloud taken by Japanese that are known to exist. The Hiroshima Peace Museum sent me a partial list (the only one they had in English) and it was amazing to find dozens of shots taken by the Japanese.

Odd how the cloud doesn't change shape during that film. Mushroom clouds change shape rapidly; at least in the videos I've seen of atomic blasts.

I read somewhere that the original negatives were mysteriously lost; IIRC Caron himself said that.