Kobe's merchant-mariners memorial

What was the most surprising discovery on the Japan trip?

Kobe's merchant-mariners memorial, whose simple display of lost ships made the human cost of maritime war immediate.

The trip's most surprising discovery was a small Kobe museum dedicated to sailors and merchant mariners. Its central display groups photographs of lost ships by year and by the order in which they sank. The accumulation turns an abstract loss total into a visible sequence of individual ships. Its simple presentation makes the human cost of maritime war immediate.