上面這張照片下緣的文字告訴我們這是美國陸軍航空隊第3轟炸大隊在1945年4月8日執行98-C-?號任務時拍攝的,地點就在台灣的嘉義。經過比對之後,發現被攻擊的是台拓化學工業株式會社的嘉義化學工場(當時的主要產品是丁醇和丙酮;戰後經過幾次轉型,目前是台灣中油的煉製研究所)。由於我找不到第3轟炸大隊的任務報告,因此就沒有更多關於這次任務的資訊可以在此提供。
The text below the photo reveals that the photo was taken on April 8, 1945, when the 3rd Bombardment Group of the US Army Air Force carried out Mission 98-C-? over Kagi (currently Chiayi). The factory being bombed was the butanol plant owned by the Taiwan Development Chemical Industry Co. No additional information about this photo is available.
在同一批照片檔案中,我找到以下這張沒有日期、被檔案管理人員標註為嘉義鐵路調車場(Kagi railroad yard)的攻擊照片,兩個手畫的白色圈圈裡是B-25投下的傘降殺傷彈(parafrag bomb),然而我在嘉義火車站一帶的空照圖中卻始終找不到場景裡的地點。後來在美軍分析嘉義化學工場偵照的報告中,發現一段文字描述一塊長方形區域內設有多個儲存槽。我再回到嘉義化學工場的空照圖尋找,果然就看到了這張照片所涵蓋的區域。
In the same archive containing the first photo, I found the undated image below, which the curator described as “Parafrag bombs (encircled) dropped on Kagi railroad yards in Formosa by North American B-25s of the 5th Air Force”. However, I was not able to locate the scene on the reconnaissance photos of Kagi railroad yard. I seemed to recall that the photo interpretation report on the Kagi butanol plant referred to a rectangular area enclosing tanks. So I searched the reconnaissance photo again and indeed found the location inside the butanol plant.
利用下面這張1945年6月拍攝的垂直偵察照片,我把前面兩張照片所涵蓋的範圍分別標示出來:
Using the June 1944 vertical reconnaissance photo as a reference, I marked the areas covered by the above two photos with arrows. The area between each pair of arrows is the field of view of the corresponding photo.
下圖是美國陸軍1945年編繪的嘉義地圖中,涵蓋嘉義化學工場的局部:
The image below is from US Army’s Map of Kagi in 1945:
相同地點的現代衛星空照圖:
The modern satellite image covering the same area: