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by Maho Yamamoto, Staff Writer

On September 12, 1945, U.S. Brigadier General Thomas Farrell, second in command of the U.S. project established to develop an atomic bomb, held a press conference in Tokyo, releasing a statement on the results of a survey conducted in Hiroshima. Downplaying the effects of radiation, he emphasized that the major cause of casualties from the atomic bombing were the blast and fires.

Prior to that, on September 8, a team led by Mr. Farrell formally known as the Manhattan Project Atomic Bomb Investigating Group had arrived in Hiroshima. The team’s purpose was to grasp whether there existed any obstacles that would pose risks to the occupying forces and to verify the devastation caused by the atomic bombing. On September 9 and 10th, the survey group visited hospitals and relief stations and checked on survivors admitted to those facilities. The Mainichi Shimbun at that time published a photograph showing the survey team lined up and listening to an explanation provided by Masao Tsuzuki, a professor from Tokyo Imperial University (present-day University of Tokyo), at the Ono Army Hospital (located in present-day Hatsukaichi City).

The survey group included James Nolan, a military physician who died in 1983 at the age of 67. According to his grandson, James L. Nolan Jr., 61, a professor of sociology at Williams College in the United States, Mr. Nolan had joined Los Alamos Laboratory, the base for A-bomb development by scientists such as the physicist Robert Oppenheimer, known as the “father of the atomic bomb,” at the time the lab was established in 1943. As an obstetrician and gynecologist, James Nolan attended the childbirth of Mr. Oppenheimer’s wife and was involved in providing health care to lab staff as well as managing radiation safety.

Communicated radiation’s risks

For the first nuclear test, conducted on July 16, 1945, Mr. Nolan was involved in the development of safety measures and, prior to the test, communicated to Major General Leslie Groves, director of the project, information about the risks of radiation. Meanwhile, he undertook work involving transport of the atomic bomb that would be dropped on Hiroshima to Tinian Island, the departure point for the aircraft designed to carry the weapon. James Nolan said that everyone had been focused entirely on developing the bomb, with concerns about radiation risk a secondary issue, and described his feeling that his grandfather and the other physicians must have found themselves facing a significant dilemma.

The survey team, which included Mr. Nolan and other military physicians, visited Hiroshima and set about working to detect residual radiation using equipment they had brought into the country. The team confirmed dramatic declines of white blood cell counts in survivors. In a Chugoku Shimbun article published on September 5, 1945, Mr. Tsuzuki referred to cases of the deaths of people who had entered Hiroshima shortly after the atomic bombing and expressed his views about the effects of residual radiation. “A certain degree of damage can be assumed to have occurred in those working at locations within a radius of 500 meters from the hypocenter during a period of several days after the bombing,” Mr. Tsuzuki said at the time.

In his statement, however, Mr. Farrell denied any effects of residual radiation, which would certainly have invited criticism of the bombing as an inhumane act. He remarked that the symptoms observed in the survivors during his visits to hospitals were not the result of dangerous radiation accumulated in the ground. He added that no measurable amounts of radiation had been found anywhere, including in the hypocenter area. However, the effects of A-bomb radiation were spread over a large area by such fallout as “black rain,” with uncertainty remaining even today about the effects of residual radiation, including internal radiation exposure.

“Haunted for the rest of his life”

Two years ago, James Nolan’s book Atomic Doctors: Conscience and Complicity at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age in Japan was published in Japan, with a Mainichi Newspapers’ photo on the back cover. In the book, he described the path his grandfather had taken, while aware of radiation’s risks beforehand, that led to his involvement in the development and dropping of the atomic bomb. James Nolan was firm when he described how his grandfather had been deeply haunted by the atomic bombing for the rest of his life and how he himself believed the atomic bombing to have been unnecessary and unjustifiable.

After the war, Mr. Nolan left the military and dedicated himself to cancer research and treatment. He did not speak about his experiences in Japan, but once, he told his family how the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been unimaginable.

(Originally published on September 12, 2024)