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116 4 the bikini incident isn’t over Salvaging the Engine On hearing that the engine of the Lucky Dragon #5 was sunk in the sea off Shichirimi Beach in Wakayama, one of my fellow crewmembers said he’d be happy if the engine served as a shelter for fish. The engine is a ship’s soul. Shichirimi Beach is said to be a home for the spirits of the dead. Seeking safe haven, the engine must have returned to its home waters. I said a prayer: “Thank you for all your labors. May you rest in peace.” The engine had traced a sad path, albeit a path different from that of the rest of the ship. Soon after World War II ended, it was fitted onto the Kotoshiro #7 and fished for bonito—tough work—for six years. Then the Lucky Dragon #5 and tuna fishing: one year. The engine was already antiquated. After drawing great attention as the ship that was exposed, the Lucky Dragon #5 narrowly escaped being scuttled, and her hull was bought by the government. For a while, the ship was observed for residual radiation— goldfish were raised on board, and morning glories and other plants grown. Eventually a thorough inspection conducted in 1956 declared her safe, and she was reborn as the Hayabusa, a training vessel for the Tokyo University of Fisheries. From the heavily contaminated deck on up, her superstructure was removed and rebuilt, with metal. All damaged parts, including hull and timbers , were replaced, as was the entire deck. The hull was painted white and looked like a totally different ship. Minister of Education Kiyose Ichirō christened her the Hayabusa. THE BIKINI INCIDENT ISN’T OVER 117 For the next ten years, with fisheries students on board, the Hayabusa made training and observation cruises in the seas around Japan. Then she was thought to have outlived her usefulness and was decommissioned, except that her engine was pulled out and sold for use in a freighter. But on her maiden voyage the freighter ran aground off Shichirimi Beach—was it that the engine had worn out? To avoid sinking, she was run up onto shore, but the next day a typhoon hit, and she broke up and sank. Now on the bottom, the engine began its long sleep. Twenty-eight years passed. In 1994, a news photographer and a reporter, curious—perhaps because of the importance of the Bikini Incident—about what had happened to the engine, located it in the waters off Shichirimi Beach, took pictures of it, and wrote an article for the local paper. It was on November 18, 1995, via a phone call from Manabe Hiroki, Nagoya desk reporter of the Asahi, that I learned the engine had been found. He wanted to interview me. On November 21, Manabe came to interview me; he brought the underwater photos he had taken. In the evening edition of the Asahi for December 20, the interview and photos of the sunken engine ran as one of the lead stories: Forty Years after Exposure—Suffering in Silence Lucky Dragon #5 Engine Rests Off Kumanonada “Still there?” One of the ship’s crew spoke to the photo. The engine that belonged to the Lucky Dragon #5, which witnessed the hydrogen bomb test conducted in 1954 at Bikini and was covered in “death ash,” lies now on the bottom off the Kii Peninsula. After the Bikini Incident, the engine was sold to a freighter that sank here in 1968, in fog. This hunk of metal lying on the seabed reminds us of the crewmembers who are still suffering because of their radioactive past. The engine lies quietly on the bottom, pinned between rocks. Sixteen feet long, three feet wide. Covered with brown and dark green seaweed. Snails clinging to it. Fifty yards out from Shichirimi Beach, thirty feet down. The locals remember where the engine sank; it’s also in the records of the Maritime Safety Office. The Lucky Dragon #5 was born in 1947 at a boatyard in Wakayama. There was a serious shortage of lumber after Japan’s defeat; they say even pines growing on Shichirimi Beach were used in building her. The engine that had once been showered with “death ash” had returned to its place of birth and become a shelter nurturing sea life. On learning this, a citizen of Wakayama thought the engine ought to be more than a shelter for fish and shellfish, and with funds from local consumer...

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