The Day the Sun Rose in the West: Bikini, the Lucky Dragon, and I

2. Return to Port, Chaotic Days

2 return to port, chaotic days 22 Home to Yaizu We started exhibiting abnormal symptoms beginning the evening of the day we were covered in ash. Some of us complained of serious pain. Headache, nausea, dizziness, diarrhea. Our eyes turned red and were itchy with mucus. Beginning about the third day, our faces turned unusually dark, and many small blisters appeared on the parts of our bodies—wrists, ankles, waists at belt level—where ash had settled as we worked. It was strange: they looked like burns, but they weren’t very painful. I think it was a week before our hair began to fall out. Pull, and hair would fall out in bunches, roots and all; but there was no pain. All this made us shudder. In view of everything that had happened, I assumed it had to be related in some way to the white ash. I was worried about my own condition, but at least I could move. I’ll be okay by the time we reach port—that was the level of my concern. It took us two weeks to get back to our home port of Yaizu. On the return, we saved fuel by unfurling the sail, when we had a following wind, and lowering it otherwise; we did this with our injured hands. We also repaired lines and buoys against our next voyage. Perhaps because we had guilty consciences, we cautioned each other: “Keep quiet about this when we land.” “It may be an important U.S. military secret.” It was only the fifth voyage for the Lucky Dragon #5 since Yaizu had become her home port, and for some of the crew this was their first voyage on her; so we weren’t particularly close. That was the situation when this incident befell us. RETURN TO PORT, CHAOTIC DAYS 23 There wasn’t much candor; we didn’t even talk much. Some had said they’d be leaving the ship after this voyage. I’d been told I’d be put in charge of refrigeration , but I wanted to hire onto a bigger ship as soon as possible. I didn’t want to stay long on the Lucky Dragon #5. On March 11, just before we got back to port, we encountered severe low pressure similar to what we’d experienced on departure. Our ship was tossed about violently; my blood froze. “When it rains, it pours.” The ship’s owner still hadn’t received a report on the incident from Kuboyama. On March 13, he got a telegram announcing: “Will arrive morning 14th.” “Passed Miyakejima 17:30.” I stood the last watch. On March 14, at 5:30 a.m., our voyage—fifty-two days of continual misfortune—was finally over, and in the morning mist our ship docked quietly in Yaizu. The day’s fish auction was already over, so our catch wouldn’t be off-loaded until the next morning. (Thanks to this one-day delay, it became possible to throw out much of the tuna and thus limit the damage.) The ship’s owner was shocked to learn everything that had happened, and looking into our black faces, he instructed us to go straight to the hospital and get examined. Beginning Skin burns caused by radioactive fallout. (Yomiuri Shimbun, March 17, 1954) 24 CHAPTER TWO around 10:00 a.m., we each got examined at Yaizu Public Hospital. It was Sunday , so there was only one doctor on duty, surgeon Ōi Toshiaki. As soon as he heard the situation, he sensed immediately that we were suffering from radiation sickness. He tested our white blood cells and applied a sticky zinc ointment that looked like face powder. We looked so conspicuous with pure white ointment on our dark faces that we felt embarrassed to go out. We’d had a poor catch, and now this unease added to it. With mixed emotions , we went to our homes, taking our bonus of six pounds of tuna. As always, I handed mine out to neighbors, then returned to the ship. Two days later, the newspaper reports about contaminated tuna threw families, those who had received the tuna and had eaten it, into a panic. Early on the morning of March 15, the tuna were off-loaded and sent to Shizuoka, of course, but to other prefectures, too: Kanagawa, Tokyo, Nagoya, Niigata, Gifu, Fukui, Ishikawa, Aichi, Mie, Osaka, Hyōgo, Okayama...