Juan-les-Pins, August 9th 1945.

Yet another Juan-les-Pins postcard... From a graphic standpoint, it's not that interesting, not a lot details, as the colorization process masked many of them.

No, one this one, the back side is more interesting : this postcard was sent by Lieutenant J. Robinson, an american soldier then deployed here, to his parents in Baltimore (Maryland).

And the date sends a shiver through my spine : the US Army Postal Service stamps shows August 9th 1945.
That very same day, the Bockscar bomber (see nose art on the right) dropped the Fat Man atomic bomb onto Nagasaki, instantly killing 30.000, and many more later due to the effects of radiations...


War in Europe has only been over for 3 months, and Japan will surrender 6 days later, marking the end of WW2. The handwritten text has a different after taste in this context : Obvisouly, this soldier ignored everything about what was about to happen on the other side of the globe, and even if he had, the army censors verifier all letters against leaks.
At the same moment, Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Nagasaki, just a few kilometers away from the hypocenter of the explosion. Three days earlier, he also was in Hiroshima on a business trip... He managed to survive both bombs ; he passed away a few months ago, last January.

The Fat Man type bomb was later tested on the Bikini atoll, which gave its name to the swimsuit I was telling you about recently, which was marketed as follow : "the bikini, the first anatomic bomb" (sic)...