Reminiscences
by Tomio Nitta
Personnel Section, Department of Administration, 1947-77
It was sometime in June 1947, when I had a position in Kure City Office, that I became involved in ABCC’s work. In those days, Kure City was full of US occupation forces and almost all of the automobiles in the streets were military vehicles. One day a US naval Lieutenant in uniform came to see the mayor of Kure City and asked him for his cooperation in ABCC’s work, which was to examine the health of A-bomb survivors and of those who had not been exposed to A-bomb. Considering how the people in Kure felt about A-bomb in those days and the difficulties expected, the city could not but hesitate to ask the people for their help under the name of the mayor. As an alternative the city offered to help in an indirect way and the lieutenant happily accepted the offer. Having a position in the physical strength development unit in the city office, I was given the job of helping ABCC with its work. This was only for a very short time because I was purged from public office on account of my military record. Because of the feelings the people had in those days toward the occupation forces, there was no one who would take over from me the troublesome work of ABCC. It appeared as if ABCC’s plan which started to take off would come to a halt. After some hard thinking, ABCC, with the approval of the military government in the Chugoku District, decided to hire me as a special case. Thus, since September 1947, I have worked full-time for ABCC.
When I joined ABCC, it had a staff of 7 people, Lt. Snell of the US navy, 1 Japanese doctor, 2 nurses, 2 technicians and me. The work was primarily hematological examination and data collection. We had to change cities every other days; one day in Hiroshima to examine the A-bomb exposed and the next day in Kure to see the non-exposed. We had to move around here and there in one jeep assigned to us and were kept busy the whole day long. As an examination room we rented space in the buildings of the Red Cross Hospital in Hiroshima and Kure Mutual Relief Hospital. There were neither streetcars nor buses running in the two cities, and we often had to walk from Hiroshima Railroad Station to Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital.
In those days, it was very hard to have the people understand ABCC’s work. I remember how I visited everyday the principals and nurse-teachers of various schools, management of companies and officials of various organizations and explained to them politely what ABCC was doing to have their cooperation. There were patients who would talk about their experience of A-bomb exposure for two or three hours to which we had to listen patiently and then would refuse to be examined. Even now the hardships of contacting work is vivid in my memory. Some people might think that the support and authority of the occupation forces made patient contacting work easy, but it was not always so. We had to emphasize the importance of the health survey and try really hard to have the understanding of the people for their cooperation. On the brighter side, I remember how we were appreciated when we explained the results of the examination orally in detail.
In 1948 more people were added to the staff and the Japanese National Institute of Health opened office in March of the same year. If I am not mistaken, it was also the year in which the initial genetic study took place as the main work. There was time that the foreign components took home leave for a few months, during which operations were left solely in the hands of the Japanese staff. At such time, there was a brave (?) nisei driver who would drive a jeep up and down the stone steps of a shrine or raise the speed to, I would say, 80 kilometers an hour. Luckily, there were few automobiles running those days so there was little danger of a collision. Many goods and products were still rationed. One day there was a ration of liquor from the Kaitaichi Labor Office. Apparently, the driver of our jeep had one drink too much and drove the jeep left and right all the way to Kure. This made me realize for the first time the need of service regulations, the development of which led to labor strife which, in turn, led to the creation of Hachi-roku (8-6) Kai, a friendship association of a kind.
In August 1948, personnel and payroll work was separated from security forces labor administration office and placed in the hands of ABCC for its management. The foreign staff was increased in parallel with the Japanese staff which came close to 100. The former Gaisenkan in Ujina was rented and ABCC started to operate on full scale.
About the same time Nagasaki ABCC (on the premises of Nagasaki Medical University) was established. An independent laboratory was also set up in Kure. These events marked the continuing expansion of ABCC, which culminated in the construction of laboratories on Hijiyama, to which the facilities in Ujina moved in October 1950. Kure Laboratory was closed in 1953 for consolidation of its activities in Hiroshima, but its image is still vivid in my memory.
This article was originally published in RERF Newsletter 1(2): 5, 1963 in Japanese.