“The Nagasaki Shipyard & Engine Works of Mitsubishi Heavy-Industries, Ltd. (Akunoura-Machi, Nagasaki, Japan, ca. 1946-47) Original pictorial wrapper. 8.5 x 11.5” 6pp.
Photographic Pictorial booklet of cargo and passenger ship production at the shipyard. a year after the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in August 1945; with accompanying unsigned report, “General Description, Nagasaki Shipyard & Engine Works, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.” [Tokyo?] 36pp. carbon copy, with a foldout blueprint-type map of the Shipyard, 13 x 26.5”. Rare. We can locate no entry for either the booklet or the report in WorldCat. Possibly these are the only copies extant outside of US Government archives.
The shipyard, which produced military vessels for the Japanese Navy was located near the ocean, thus possibly beyond the blast radius, which instantly killed 35,000 people and totally destroyed most of the city’s industrial production – though not the dockyard area. “Conversion” of the Shipyard to civilian work during the MacArthur occupation was detailed in the accompanying report, undoubtedly prepared by an American officer at MacArthur’s General Headquarters. The booklet may have been issued by the company, once the largest producer of Japanese battleships before Pearl Harbor, now hoping for a comeback. During the US occupation, the shipyard was relegated, for a time, to building postwar merchant ships for Greek shipping tycoons like Niarchos and Onassis.