Japan marks U.S. nuke test in Pacific
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| Mon, 03-01-2004 - 12:33pm |
Sunday, February 29, 2004 · Last updated 12:18 p.m. PT
Japan marks U.S. nuke test in Pacific
By MARI YAMAGUCHI
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
TOKYO -- On the night of March 1, 1954, the No. 5 Fukuryu-maru was trolling for tuna off the Bikini atoll in the Pacific.
Suddenly, fisherman Matashichi Oishi saw the sky flash orange and felt a rumbling shake the trawler. As he and 22 other crew members rushed to the deck, tiny white flakes began to fall on them like snow.
The crew thought an underwater volcano had erupted. But what they saw that night was something far more destructive: an American hydrogen bomb.
The No. 5 Fukuryu-maru, or Lucky Dragon, was about 100 miles off Bikini island in the central Pacific when the United States tested a bomb there, engulfing the fishermen with high levels of radiation.
The bombing 50 years ago Monday inspired outraged protest in Japan, gave impetus to the country's anti-nuclear movement and strongly reinforced the image of Japan - the site of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks - as a unique witness to the atomic age.
"We were the victims of the nuclear arms race," said Oishi, 70, who runs a laundry in Tokyo and recently published a book on the bombing. "The Bikini incident is not a problem of the past. It's an issue of nuclear weapons that affects all of us today."
For the fishermen exposed, the effects of the bomb were devastating.
By the time the trawler returned home two weeks later, some crew members had lost hair, developed skin burns or had discolored faces. They suffered from diarrhea and jaundice. Their white blood counts dropped dangerously low. The boat's radio telegraph operator, Aikichi Kuboyama, died in September 1954.
Survivors have suffered from liver and blood disorders. In addition to Kuboyama, 11 crew members have died in the half-century since the exposure, at least six of them from liver cancer. Oishi has had surgery for liver cancer.
Fears at the time were high that such exposure was much more widespread. Between 1946 and 1958, the United States conducted 66 nuclear tests at Bikini as part of "Operation Crossroads." The atoll is part of the Marshall Islands, 2,400 miles southwest of Hawaii.
Experts say nearly 900 other Japanese fishing boats were also believed to have been in the affected area. Japanese officials were aware of the testing program, but Oishi says fishermen were not well-informed about the timing of the tests or what areas were dangerous.
No follow up studies have been conducted on those other boats and nobody knows how many fishermen might have been affected, says Kazuya Yasuda, curator of Tokyo's No. 5 Fukuryu-maru Exhibition Hall, where the boat is now on display.
The exhibit, which includes a crew diary and artifacts such as the "ash of death" in a glass bottle, was renovated ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Bikini bombing. A film about the bombing is being shown.
"We are here to let people think about the risk of nuclear weapons today and think about peace," Yasuda said, walking past elementary school children on a field trip studying the displays.
In 1955, the U.S. government paid $2 million in compensation to Japan, one-third of what the Japanese government had requested.
The package included condolence money for Kuboyama, medical costs for the rest of the crew and damages to Japan's fishing industry, according to Foreign Ministry documents. In 1983, the U.S. government paid the Marshall Islands $183.7 million in compensation.
The payments settled the issue between the governments, but not for the victims.
Oishi, like the other crew members, received about $5,600 in compensation. But the Japanese government has not recognized the 23 as victims of a nuclear bomb, excluding them from relief funds set up for survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The crew also faced a stigma common in Japan for victims and the physically ill. Oishi fled the prying eyes of his neighbors in his hometown of Yaizu, 100 miles southwest of Tokyo, and went to the capital after his initial symptoms subsided.
But the effects of the bombing kept coming back. Oishi's first baby had birth defects and died. His daughter suffered three broken marriage engagements after prospective husbands learned Oishi had been exposed to radiation.
"For years, I only wanted to hide my past. But after seeing my colleagues die like social outcasts, I felt it wasn't right. I thought it was so unfair," Oishi said. "So I came out of the closet. I couldn't let our past be forgotten like nothing happened."
Since he broke his silence on the bombing in the early 1980s, Oishi has been speaking about his experience at schools, town halls and museums.
"As a survivor of the nuclear test, I have to let people know the threat of nuclear weapons," he said. "I'll keep telling my story as long as I live."
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How terribly sad for those Japanese fishermen.
Outrageously irresponsible to test with people
Horrible, isn't it...
Reminds me of a cartoon that said, "I have seen the enemy and it is us"
When I visited Hiroshima and saw the bombed out building, it reminded me of what I saw in Germany after WWII, but this was worse. So many people died from radiation poisoning, and that's not pleasant. Don't think Americans think about the repercussions because we are so distanced from it. My X said they could see the blast from Hawaii, and we just ignore the destiny of the populous of Bikini. Out of site, out of mind.