Minutes of the Second ABCC/RERF History ForumSpeaker:

Mr. Toraji Miyagawa, former Chief, General Affairs Section, Secretariat,RERF

Moderator:

Mr. Takanobu Teramoto, Executive Director

Date:

15:00-16:10, December 13 (Fri.), 2013

Place:

Videoconference: Auditorium in Hiroshima laboratory and Conference
Room 4 in Nagasaki laboratory(Honorifics omitted; parenthetical statements represent complementary information forclarification purposes)
Teramoto: Thank you for participating in the second session of the ABCC/RERF History
Forum series today. In the first session, we had an opportunity to listen to Mr. Okamoto of theNagasaki Laboratory. In this second session, we are hoping that Mr. Miyagawa, who worked
at the Hiroshima Laboratory, could tell us about his experiences and stories, especially before
and after the Life Span Study (LSS) was launched in 1958.
First, I will share with you the purpose of this History Forum series. ABCC/RERF has
engaged in conducting studies for 66 years, and the LSS has been globally recognized as thegold standard of studies on radiation risks. Since it is important to keep records of what
ABCC/RERF has achieved, the Historical Management Committee has been launched torecord its organizational history and also a history of the science of radiation risks. At aCommittee meeting held before this Forum today, among other issues, we discussed the ideal
way to preserve and disclose historical materials. While the Committee deals with such issues,
it is important for all current RERF management and employees to learn about the history ofABCC/RERF. For this reason, we have created opportunities where we are able to listen toexperiences and stories from former ABCC/RERF employees and learn more about the ABCCtimes.
I would like to introduce our speaker, Mr. Toraji Miyagawa. He joined ABCC in 1949
and worked in the Printing Office for five years. He then worked at the Hiroshima Peace
Memorial Museum for about one year. In May 1955, he returned to ABCC in the Division ofNonmedical Records and Coding (presently the Master File Section), Statistics, as a Group
Leader. Later he became Unit Supervisor, then Assistant Section Chief, and finally Section
Chief.
In 1975, after ABCC was reorganized into RERF, he assumed the position of Chief,
General Affairs Section, Secretariat. In 1989, he retired from RERF. After working as an
Adjunct Specialist, he worked at RERF for seven years as the Manager of the MHW(Ministry of Health and Welfare)-funded project to launch the Hiroshima National Peace
Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims. He is currently the President of the RERF
Hiroshima OB/OG-Kai (Retirees Club).
As a starter, we would like to hear how you joined ABCC.
Miyagawa: After the war, I worked for the Occupation troops until I lost my job there around1947. Then, I was introduced to ABCC by a second-generation Japanese American, who wasworking at ABCC as an interpreter. I visited ABCC (which was located in Ujina at that time)in July 1949. They hired me immediately and put me in charge of printing work. I was the1

2nd History Forumonly employee in charge of printing work, using one early duplicator (blue printing machine),
which was called a “ditto machine.” My job was making the requested numbers of copies ofdocuments handed in by a secretary of each department. ABCC decided to launch a newPrinting Office, and accordingly a foreign staff member and I went to look at potential
properties. We finally decided on a former barracks site in Hiro, Kure City for the PrintingOffice.
To start the Printing Office, four to five people, including photographers, were hired, andtwo offset machines and a large paper-cutting machine were purchased. In the Office, there
was also a large-sized duplicator, called a “photostat machine,” which made photographic
copies directly on paper. Printing orders from each Department at the Hiroshima Laboratory
were communicated to the Printing Office in Hiro. Requested numbers of copies were made,and finished copies were delivered back to each Department.
When I made my visit to ABCC in Ujina in July 1949, several Department Chiefs andpeople in similar positions were out of the office. That was because they were at Hijiyama toattend the groundbreaking ceremony for ABCC’s new facilities at Hijiyama site. From around1950, the relocation from Ujina to Hijiyama started. Accordingly, the Printing Office in Hirowas transferred to an empty building at the Ujina site, which was virtually the launch of afull-fledged Printing Office.
When the Printing Office finally settled in Hijiyama, there was a total of about 10
employees, including four to five illustrators, two people in charge of making prints, one
responsible for the “photostat machine,” one in charge of plate-making, and one assistant.
Teramoto: What was it like to work for the Peace Memorial Museum for a year (after you
resigned from ABCC once)? Was the Museum established by the City of Hiroshima?
Miyagawa: At that time, the Museum was located in a one-story building next to a community
hall in the neighborhood of the entrance of the Gokoku Shrine. The Museum was about thesame size as the RERF Auditorium. Dr. Nagaoka, the first Director of the Museum, collected
A-bomb artifacts, such as roof tiles, rocks, bottles and other things from all over the city. In
the Museum, such artifacts were exhibited with handwritten notes indicating where they had
been A-bombed and other information. I was helping Dr. Nagaoka with this Museum project.
Teramoto: You returned to ABCC in the Division of the Nonmedical Records and Coding as aGroup Leader. What did you do exactly?
Miyagawa: ABCC hired about 40 people, most of them females, to launch a mortality study. I
held study sessions in the Auditorium to teach them the alphabet, the Hepburn system ofRoman characters, and how to put words in alphabetical order as a tool for organizing
materials.
Teramoto: In 1955, the Francis Recommendations were issued, which called for the launch of
the current LSS. Had a mortality study, based on death certificates, already been underway bythen?
Miyagawa: That is correct. A two-shift system was implemented to complete the mortality
study in a short period of time, and it continued until around January 1960. The hours of theday shift were from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. from Mondays to Fridays. Those of the night shift
were from 4:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. from Tuesdays to Fridays and from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
on Saturdays and Sundays.

2

2nd History ForumTeramoto: What did you do exactly for the mortality study?
Miyagawa: We duplicated the content of death certificates borrowed from the city hall andchecked them against the master files to code the necessary data. Death certificates issued
right after the war were far poorer than the current ones in terms of quality of format. At thattime, doctors wrote diagnoses and symptoms at their discretion on a tiny piece of coarse paper
like a baggage tag. Despite such quality, I believe, the death certificates were at least able toprovide information on deaths and to allow us to code the causes of death. The scope of theearly mortality study dated back to as early as 1945.
Teramoto: I believe that the Francis Recommendations, issued in the fall of 1955, stated that
although the mortality study had already been launched, it had not been systematic enough.
As a result of the Recommendations, was the mortality study revised to become a study wherea structured cohort could be followed up and their death certificates collected?
Miyagawa: That is correct. At the beginning of 1956, it was decided to develop a consolidated
questionnaire, since there were already a few kinds of questionnaires, including the RQ(Radiation Questionnaire) and the MQ (Migration Questionnaire). Based on requests fromeach Department, I drafted a new questionnaire, which, when completed around March, wasthe new MSQ (Master Sample Questionnaire). At that time, I worked night shifts as the Group
Leader, and my job was only giving employees instructions at the beginning of the shift. After
that, I had nothing else to do and therefore spent time working on the design of the MSQ in
the Printing Office, where no one was there at night.
Teramoto: Were there some differences between the day shift and the night shift in terms ofjob description and the number of employees?
Miyagawa: In addition to the night shift, I came in for the day shift, because I needed to get agrip on the progress of work made during the day shift in order to give instructions to thenight shift employees. Although there were fewer employees for the day shift, many of themwere more experienced and reviewed the work done by the night shift the night before. I
communicated such review results to the night shift employees.
Teramoto: After working night shifts, how did employees go down the hill of Hijiyama in thepitch-dark?
Miyagawa: Those who headed back home in the same direction gathered as a group to go
down Hijiyama, in the direction of the police box at the bottom of Hijiyama or towards
Danbara. Some went down with guards, janitors or others who left work around 10:00 p.m.
Occasionally, some got a ride in an official car available to those who were engaged inautopsies at ABCC.
Teramoto: I heard that ABCC was criticized by some local communities in Hiroshima. Did
you feel such frictions as an employee of ABCC?
Miyagawa: I personally never had a chance to contact study subjects. Field investigators
carried out their jobs using the MSQ, and there were certain areas where it was very difficult.
Experienced experts were assigned to those areas. I heard that some field investigators had
frightening experiences when visiting some study subjects, and that some study subjects
rejected their cooperation in very strong language. Protest groups came to the top of Hijiyama
32nd History Forumon August 6, and once we took the precaution of taking the day off as scheduled.
Teramoto: In 1975, when ABCC was reorganized into RERF, a Japan-US cooperative
research organization, were there any changes?
Miyagawa: I did not notice any changes. Regarding the organization-wide approval process,in the ABCC times, a relevant Department Chief simply approved a matter and then theresults were shared with those who were concerned. In the RERF times, however, the process
became more complicated, requiring submission of a kiansho, an approval request form, foreach matter. When I prepared my first kiansho, I was at a loss because I did not know a thing
about it.
In ABCC, when people approved something, they signed their names instead of using
their seal. Therefore, we only used our seals when we received our salaries once a month.
RERF started to use a new pay scale, but our salaries were not changed since they were
decided based on the amount we had received in the ABCC times.
The working hours were from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. However, employees of theSecretariat sometimes stayed past 5:00 p.m. because the MHW occasionally called in after
4:30 p.m.
Teramoto: When ABCC, which was solely operated by the U.S., was reorganized into RERF,
jointly operated by Japan and the U.S., did society value that change?
Miyagawa: I believe so.
Teramoto: As a member of the Historical Material Management Committee, you have been
involved in the deliberation on issues such as how to preserve historical materials and how tomake them accessible to the public. I would like to hear from you about the preservation ofhistorical records from the ABCC times.
Miyagawa: Around 1949, there was the Central File Section, consisting of three to four staff
members. Delivery people used to visit each Department twice a day to pick up files to be
stored at the Central File Section. They classified the collected files according to their content
and then color-coded them for storage, using labels of more than ten different colors. When
ABCC relocated to Hijiyama, the Central File Section dissolved. Those files were apparently
returned to each Department, because I saw some documents with the stamp of “Central File”
among other documents at the Department of Epidemiology and Statistics. I imagine that eachDepartment Chief judged the necessity of the preservation for the returned files. I was once
instructed by a Department Chief to destroy part of the returned documents. I witnessed thatthose documents were delivered by truck to the disposal facilities, located in the western partof Hiroshima Prefecture, to be destroyed there.
Teramoto: After retirement, you engaged in the preservation of records related to theA-bombing for the project to launch the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for theAtomic Bomb Victims.
Miyagawa: At that time, there were seven or eight sub-committees for the project to consider
the ideal way to preserve A-bomb-related records. We visited hospitals where medical recordsof A-bomb survivors were stored.
Teramoto: Last, we would like you to comment as the President of the ABCC/RERF
4

2nd History ForumOB/OG-Kai (Retirees Club).
Miyagawa: We held the 27th annual meeting of the OB/OG-Kai this year. The number ofattendees has been on the decline year by year, so I would like to ask all of you to join theOB/OG-Kai when you retire from RERF.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Mr. Miyagawa’s talk was followed by questions and answers, as follows:
Question: There have been contactors since the ABCC times, and there has been a highly
unique system to invite study participants to take health examinations biannually. The late-Dr.
James Neel was deeply impressed by this system. Do you have any remarks about that?
Miyagawa: There were five to six local offices in the city, and contactors paid a visit bybicycle to study subjects living around each local office. At the time when you did not see
many bicycles on the street, ABCC purchased about 100 bicycles. Also, we picked up study
participants by Jeep to take health examinations at ABCC. I would attribute part of thesuccess of the study to the money invested. I heard that some contactors, who had been
policemen, military police or the like before, almost forced study participants to cooperate in
the study. When those who violated ABCC’s policy were identified, they were dismissed
immediately by authority of a Department Chief, which showed the very severe aspect ofworking at ABCC at that time.
Teramoto: Mr. Miyagawa, thank you very much for your valuable stories. Please take goodcare of yourself. We would like to ask for your continuous support in the area of historicalmaterial management.
[Applause]

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2nd History Forum