Late GI's fall 1945 photos of Tokyo go on display

NAGOYA (Kyodo) Forty-three photos taken in Tokyo in autumn 1945 by a U.S. soldier waiting to rotate home were exhibited Wednesday at Chubu University.

A photo taken by American serviceman Clifford McCarthy in the fall of 1945 shows passengers on the platform at Shinjuku Station in Tokyo. CLIFFORD MCCARTHY PHOTOS/KYODO

A girl carries her baby brother on a Tokyo street in a photo from autumn 1945.

The photos of Tokyo streets and people were donated by the widow of Clifford McCarthy, who stayed for six weeks in Tokyo's Chofu area, where a U.S. airfield was located. McCarthy had served in a U.S. Army Air Corps photoreconnaissance unit in the South Pacific.

About 10 years ago, the photos were put on private display in Japan. The current exhibition, which is open to the public, will run through Dec. 19 on the university campus in Kasugai, Aichi Prefecture.

"They are valuable photos both historically and artistically. We want as many people as possible to see them and look back on the time," a university official said.

The black-and-white photos include images of U.S. soldiers and of Japanese people appearing unbowed by defeat, including a crowd on a Shinjuku Station platform, people engaged in farm work and a girl staring at a U.S. soldier.

McCarthy, an arts professor at Ohio University before his death in 2003 at the age of 82, had spoken of being able to photograph people as proof of good will, in contrast to the feeling of hostility during the war.

The university said it could receive some of the roughly 100 negatives left by McCarthy as it has engaged in academic exchanges with Ohio University for more than 30 years.