Awful beauty, lasting impression

As a writer known for dealing with war stories and someone known for “making images of war” in the models I create for collectors (of warplanes), I was really affected by Reed Johnson’s article (“War in All Its Awful Beauty,” April 20).

When I think of the terrible things of war and what they look like, I remember a visit in 1963 to Osaka, Japan, while in the Navy. Osaka was one of the cities burned out in the fire raids in 1945. My buddy and I walked along the Ginza and out of the district. Suddenly we realized it was dusk, and we didn’t know where we were. We turned a corner and were confronted by the most fantastic sight: about 20 acres of “urban area” that hadn’t been restored yet. It was like a “black hole” -- light didn’t seem to reflect out of it. Twisted girders poked out of the burned ground. A vision of hell; a nightmare come to life. I wanted to turn away and never have seen it, but we couldn’t stop staring at it.

The moment was broken by the “beep” of a car horn. We turned back and there was a taxicab. We ran to it like it was there to rescue us. On the way back to the port, the driver asked us what we thought of what we saw. The most I could say was “I was shocked.” He told us he lived through that bombing as a child. We fell very silent, sitting there in the uniform of the victors. When we got to the port, he stopped and opened the door, and bowed to us. “I am glad you understood.”

Seeing what I did all those years ago has had a lot to do with my work as a writer and an artist. In a way, I am still dealing with the shock of that vision, trying to figure out what I saw.

Thomas McKelvey Cleaver

North Hollywood