Detectorists scavenge the main beach at Dieppe, France. The pickings were slim.

[Stephen J. Thorne/LM]

Dieppe, 83 years after the disastrous raid

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

For the purposes of an invasion—or, in this case, a raid—nautical twilight is an opportune time of day just before dawn when the sun is between six and 12 degrees below the horizon. It’s called nautical twilight because the brightest stars can still provide peacetime—and wartime—mariners with points of navigation.

On a typical pre-dawn morning along France’s Alabaster Coast, at Dieppe in particular, it’s often foggy. The twilight is just enough to give inbound vessels a shadowy land reference but, looking out from shore, there’s not much visibility.

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Hours after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, this fire-storm cloud developed over the burning city. Author Iain MacGregor explores the Japanese experience of the bombing in his new book The Hiroshima Men. [WIkimedia]

Humanizing the enemy: author shines new perspectives on 1945 bombing of Japan

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

It’s no surprise that the devastation the August 1945 atomic bombs brought to the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has continued to be investigated by authors and academics alike. One of those authors, British historian Iain MacGregor, has chosen a surprising way to approach the much-discussed topic in his new book The Hiroshima Men: The Quest to Build the Atomic Bomb, and the Fateful Decision to Use It.

The narrative details the decades-long journey toward the detonation as much as the detonation itself. Moreover, instead of focusing solely on the U.S. perspective, MacGregor delivers a groundbreaking exploration of the Japanese experience so often missing from western discourse.

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