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Events surrounding March 1, 1954[edit]

The Bravo fallout plume spread dangerous levels of radiation over an area over 100 miles (160 km) long, including inhabited islands. The contour lines show the cumulative radiation dose in roentgens (R) for the first 96 hours after the test.

The Daigo Fukuryū Maru encountered the fallout from the U.S. Castle Bravo nuclear test at Bikini Atoll, near the Marshall Islands, on March 1, 1954. When the test was held, the Daigo Fukuryū Maru was catching fish outside the danger zone that the U.S. government had declared in advance. However, the test was more than twice as powerful as predicted, and changes in weather patterns blew nuclear fallout, in the form of a fine ash, outside the danger zone. On that day, the sky in the west lit up like a sunset. Seven minutes later, the sound of the explosion arrived, with fallout reaching the ship two hours later.^{[better source needed]} The fishermen attempted to escape from the area,^{[citation needed]} but they took time to retrieve fishing gear from the sea, exposing themselves to radioactive fallout for several hours.

The fallout – fine white flaky dust of calcinated Bikini Island coral, which absorbed highly radioactive fission products and neutron activated isotopes – fell on the ship for three hours.^{[when?][citation needed]} The fishermen scooped the highly radioactive dust into bags with their bare hands. One fisherman, Matashichi Oishi, reported that he "took a lick" of the dust that fell on his ship, describing it as gritty but with no taste. The dust stuck to surfaces, bodies and hair; after the radiation sickness symptoms appeared,^[when?] the fishermen called it shi no hai (死の灰, death ash).

Events between March 2–14[edit]

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During their return, the crew began showing symptoms of radiation poisoning as early as the evening after exposure. They experienced pain, headaches, nausea, dizziness, and diarrhea. Their eye began to turn red and developed an itchy mucus. By the third day, the men began to develop small blisters on their bodies that had been touched by the radioactive ash. Their faces also began to turn dark. A week into their return journey, their hair began to fall out. On March 11, the ship encountered rough seas causing them to dock late on March 14. This late arrival fortunately caused the contaminated fish to stay within the ship until the next morning. Thus, they were able to throw away much of the tuna once they discovered the radiation.

Events after return to Yaizu port[edit]

Medical professionals, before the era of whole body counting, assessing the radioactivity of a bedridden crew member by using a geiger counter on 31 March 1954, focusing on the person's hair, which would have collected dusty fallout.

Japanese biophysicist Yasushi Nishiwaki immediately traveled from Osaka to Yaizu to examine the crew and their boat. He quickly concluded that they had been exposed to radioactive fallout and wrote a letter to the chief of the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) asking for more information on how to treat the crew. The crew members, suffering from nausea, headaches, burns, pain in the eyes, bleeding from the gums, and other symptoms, were diagnosed with acute radiation syndrome and admitted to two Tokyo hospitals. On September 23, chief radio operator Aikichi Kuboyama, 40, died—the first Japanese victim of a hydrogen bomb.^{[citation needed]} His final words were reported to be: "Please make sure that I am the last victim of a nuclear bomb.” The US did not respond to Nishiwaki's letter or to letters from other Japanese scientists requesting information and help, although the United States did dispatch two medical scientists to Japan to study the effects of fallout on the ship's crew and to assist their doctors.

The US government refused to disclose the fallout's composition due to "national security", as the fallout's isotopic ratios—namely a percentage of uranium-237—could reveal the design of the Castle Bravo device through radio-chemical analysis, with this information having a history of being regarded as potentially revealing the means by which megaton yield nuclear devices achieve their yield. For instance, Joseph Rotblat may have deduced the staging nature of the device by studying the ratio and presence of tell-tale isotopes present in the fallout. As of 1954, the Soviet Union had not yet been successful with thermonuclear staging and such information could have assisted in their development of a thermonuclear weapon. Lewis Strauss, the head of the AEC, issued a series of denials; he also hypothesized that the lesions on the fishermen's bodies were not caused by radiation but by the chemical action of the caustic burnt lime that is produced when coral is calcined, and that they were inside the danger zone. He told President Eisenhower's press secretary that the Lucky Dragon #5 may have been a "red spy outfit", commanded by a Soviet agent intentionally exposing the ship's crew and catch to embarrass the USA and gain intelligence on the test's device.

Later, the United States expanded the danger zone and it was revealed that in addition to the Daigo Fukuryū Maru, many other fishing boats were in the expanded zone at the time. It is estimated that about one hundred fishing boats were contaminated to some degree by fallout from the test. Despite denials by Lewis Strauss concerning the extent of the claimed contamination of the fish caught by Daigo Fukuryu Maru and other ships, the FDA later imposed rigid restrictions on tuna imports.

At first, the US claimed that the extent of the Lucky Dragon incident contamination was trivial. Later, the United States paid Kuboyama's widow and children the equivalent in yen of about $2,800 ($26,700 in 2020). The tragedy of the Daigo Fukuryū Maru gave rise to a fierce anti-nuclear movement in Japan, rising especially from the fear that the contaminated fish had entered the market. The Japanese and U.S. governments negotiated a compensation settlement, with the transfer to Japan of a compensation of $15,300,000, of which the fishery received a compensation of $2 million, with the surviving crew receiving about ¥ 2 million each, ($5,550 in 1954, $52,800 in 2020). It was also agreed that the victims would not be given hibakusha status. The Japanese government pledged that it would not pursue further reparations from the U.S. government.^{[citation needed]}

Medical symptoms and treatment[edit]

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After seeing the test, the Daigo Fukuryu Maru started the two week journey to Japan. The crew began showing symptoms of radiation poisoning as early as the evening after exposure. They experienced pain, headaches, nausea, dizziness, and diarrhea. Their eye began to turn red and developed an itchy mucus. By the third day, the men began to develop small blisters on their bodies that had been touched by the radioactive ash. Their faces also began to turn dark. A week into their return journey, their hair began to fall out.

After their arrival, the men went to the Yaizu Public Hospital where the surgeon, Oi Toshiaki applied a zinc ointment to their faces and sent them home. On March 15, 1954, engineer Yamamoto and deckhand Masuda were sent to the Tokyo University Hospital for treatment. There, they tested Masuda's bone marrow and found his white blood cell count at half the normal level. The remaining crew members were quarantined in Yaizu North Hospital with all of their clothes and belongings buried on the property. High levels of radiation were found in the men's hair and nails so the hospital cut off the rest of their hair.

The men were all transferred to the Tokyo University Hospital. There they would remain for fourteen months or more in some cases. They were subjected to daily examinations and blood samples from all over their bodies. Bone marrow was also drawn from different areas on the men. Their red and white blood cells had dropped significantly causing internal bleeding and blood stools. They had constant high fevers, bled from the noses and gums, and had persistent diarrhea. Their sperm counts also fell to low numbers or in some cases, to none at all. For their treatment, the men were prescribed to bed rest and given large quantities of antibiotics and blood transfusions. Dr. Morita Hisao reported that the men had developed acute panmyelosis, a disease that attacked their bone marrow destroying its ability to generate blood.

Around August 20, Kuboyama's condition deteriorated. By August 29, he fell into critical after developing meningitis. He became delirious and violent, having to be tied to a bed on the floor. Kuboyama soon fell into a coma and developed pneumonia. On September 23, he became the first member of the crew to pass away from complications of radiation sickness. The remaining twenty-two crew members were released from the hospital on May 20, 1955 after fourteen months. The received yearly checkups to monitor the toll of long term radiation sickness complications.

Health history of crew[edit]

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Like the hibakusha, survivors of atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the Lucky Dragon crew were stigmatized because of the Japanese public’s irrational fear of those exposed to radiation (it was commonly believed to be contagious). The crew tried to stay quiet about their exposure for a number of decades, beginning with their discharge from hospital. A number of the crew also had to move away from their previous places of residence to make a fresh start.

Former crew members include Susumu Misaki, who opened a tofu shop after the incident. He died of lung cancer in Shizuoka Prefecture at the age of 92.

Another crew member, Kawashima, tried to earn a living making pouches after his release from the hospital but it failed. Issues in his personal life led to a divorce between he and his wife. Kawashima returned to fishing but died soon after.

Twenty years old at the time, Oishi Matashichi, who is reported to have licked the mysterious fallout substance which fell on his ship in March 1954, as a taste test to ascertain its properties, was 79 years old in August 2013. After the exposure, he left his hometown to open a dry cleaning business. Beginning in the 1980s, he frequently gave talks advocating nuclear disarmament. His first child was a stillborn, commonly believed to be due to his radiation exposure. In 1992, Oishi developed cirrhosis of the liver but recovered after successful surgery. In 2011, he published a book titled, "The Day the Sun Rose in the West: The Lucky Dragon and I" in English.

Radioactivity of the ship post contamination[edit]

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The Daigo Fukuryū Maru was deemed safe for public viewing and was preserved in 1976. It is now on display in Tokyo at the Tokyo Metropolitan Daigo Fukuryū Maru Exhibition Hall.

Media[edit]

The Toho Film Gojira (Godzilla, 1954), was inspired in part by this event. The ship itself appears on a poster in 2001's Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, which also features Godzilla coming ashore and wreaking havoc in the Yaizu area.

A poem, Japon Balıkçısı (The Japanese Fishermen), was written in 1956 by Turkish poet Nâzım Hikmet Ran about the events.

Ralph Lapp wrote The Voyage of the Lucky Dragon, which was published in 1958. It was reviewed on the front page of The New York Times Book Review.

A film version of the events, Daigo Fukuryū Maru (1959), was directed and screenwritten by Kaneto Shindo, and produced by Kindai Eiga Kyokai and Shin Seiki Eiga.

Notes and references[edit]

1. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c}
2. ^
3. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e f}
4. ^ Structure shielding against fallout gamma rays from nuclear detonations By Lewis Van Clief Spencer, Arthur B. Chilton, Charles Eisenhauer, Center for Radiation Research, United States. National Bureau of Standards, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. pg 6
5. ^ Nasaizumi, Research in the effects and influences of the nuclear bomb test explosions, Volume 2 Japan. Committee for Compilation of Report on Research in the Effects of Radioactivity, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, 1956 - History - page 1281 onwards of 1835 pages.
6. ^
7. ^ http://www.nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Castle.html
8. ^
9. ^ Jump up to:^{a b} Leonard Engel, "Twenty-Three Fishermen and a Bomb; The Voyage of the Lucky Dragon", New York Times", February 23, 1958, p. BR1.
10. ^ Jump up to:^{a b} Hoffman, Michael, "Forgotten atrocity of the atomic age", Japan Times, August 28, 2011, p. 11.
11. ^
12. ^ Kyodo News, "Scientist immediately sought details from U.S. on 1954 Bikini H-bomb test", Japan Times, January 11, 2012, p. 2. Nishiwaki's letter, as of January 2012, was on display at the National Atomic Testing Museum in Nevada.
13. ^
14. ^
15. ^ The Radioactive Signature of the Hydrogen Bomb.
16. ^
17. ^ Schreiber, Mark, "Lucky Dragon's lethal catch", Japan Times, March 18, 2012, p. 7.
18. ^ Jump up to:^{a b}
19. ^ Jump up to:^{a b}
20. ^
21. ^https://web.archive.org/web/20110719155737/http://www.brookings.edu/projects/archive/nucweapons/50.aspx 50 Facts About U.S. Nuclear Weapons. Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940. Brookings Institution. "Money paid by the State Department to Japan following fallout from the 1954 "Bravo" test: $15,300,000"
22. ^ Jump up to:^{a b}
23. ^ In April 25, 1949 the US dollar was pegged to the YEN at $USD 1 = 360 YEN
24. ^ Jump up to:^{a b}
25. ^ https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2019/03/d05edfdbdf5b-feature-us-film-shines-light-on-japan-boat-crew-exposed-to-1954-nuke-test.html
26. ^
27. ^ 都立 第五福竜丸展示館 Official Site
28. ^ The Tokyo Metropolitan Daigo Fukuryu Maru Exhibition Hall
29. ^ http://www.siir.gen.tr/siir/n/nazim_hikmet/the_japanese_fisherman.htm
30. ^