page_title: Daigo Fukuryū Maru
section_title: Events after return to Yaizu port
hierarchical_section_title: Daigo Fukuryū Maru / Events surrounding March 1, 1954 / Events after return to Yaizu port
caption_attribution_description: 日本語: 治療を受ける第五福竜丸乗組員
context_page_description: Daigo Fukuryū Maru was a Japanese tuna fishing boat with a crew of 23 men which was contaminated by nuclear fallout from the United States Castle Bravo thermonuclear weapon test at Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954.
  The crew suffered acute radiation syndrome for a number of weeks after the Bravo test in March. During their ARS treatment, the crew was inadvertently infected with hepatitis through blood transfusions. All recovered except for Kuboyama Aikichi, the boat's chief radioman, who died from an underlying liver cirrhosis compounded by the secondary hepatitis infection on September 23, 1954. Kuboyama is considered the first victim of the hydrogen bomb and of test shot Castle Bravo.
context_section_description: 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, deckhand Masuda and 5 others which were said to make up the "elderly" members of the crew, 服部さん, 高木さん, 安藤さん, 見崎吉男さん and 領木惧三さん, 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. Japanese biophysicist Nishiwaki Yasushi 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. 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 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.
  There is a hint of criticism from Oishi Matashichi aimed at the then-外務大臣 (Foreign Minister) 岡崎勝男 (Katsuo Okazaki) in his book, citing the fact that despite the lingering resentment towards the US over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and the suspicion that US officials were only interested in research rather than attempting to cure anyone of their subsequent bombing-related ailments, Foreign Minister Okazaki is said to have spoken frequently to the crew about the need for the Americans to be present during treatment. Indeed, Matashichi goes as far as to say "The Foreign Minister usually stood on the American side, and it appeared that he was the American Foreign Minister (rather than our own)".
  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 multiple blood samples. 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 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 Aichi's condition deteriorated. By August 29, he fell into critical condition 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 die from complications of radiation sickness. The remaining twenty-two crew members were released from the hospital on May 20, 1955 after fourteen months. They received yearly checkups to monitor the toll of long term radiation sickness complications.
caption: 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.
exif: {}