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Documenting Hiroshima of 1945: Early October, symptoms of hair loss from radiation’s effects

by Kyosuke Mizukawa, Senior Staff Writer


In early October 1945, Teruo Kuruma, 22 at the time and a native of Izumo City, was hospitalized at the Ujina Branch of the Hiroshima First Army Hospital in the area of Ujina-machi (in Hiroshima’s present-day Minami Ward). As one of the patients who had developed hair loss from the effects of radiation, Mr. Kuruma was photographed by Shunkichi Kikuchi, who served as lead photographer for Nippon Eigasha (Japan Movie Co.).

His family worked in agriculture and landscape gardening in Izumo City, but he had been drafted into the military and assigned to cooking duties at the Chugoku Military District Headquarters, located on the grounds of Hiroshima Castle. On August 6, he had been trapped under the collapsed headquarters building, around 800 meters from the hypocenter. Starting around August 15, red spotting from internal bleeding had appeared over his entire body, and he developed a fever.

The Ujina Branch of the hospital, where he had immediately been hospitalized, was “full of soldier patients,” according to his personal account published in 1999. Cries from suffering patients echoed inside, and when it became quiet, it was assumed they had died. Mr. Kuruma’s health also worsened, and he even lost consciousness at one point, making it nearly impossible for him to eat. However, in mid-September, his father and sister visited him from their family home and brought him a watermelon, whose juice he was able to drink. His condition gradually improved, and he returned home in November.

His name was recorded at the time the photograph was taken, but his whereabouts afterward had been unclear. Using as a clue the personal account under his name that was archived at the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims, this reporter was able to contact his oldest son, Hiroshi, 74, a resident of Izumo City.

I found that Mr. Kuruma had died of prostate cancer in 2001 at the age of 78. Hiroshi peered with a look of surprise at the photo, taken about two months after the atomic bombing. He said, “It’s definitely my father, but I had no idea.”

After returning home, Mr. Kuruma had experienced a decrease in white blood-cell count. Every summer when Hiroshi, born in 1950, was young, his father would appear unwell and lie down at home. Hiroshi said, “Even as a child, I thought it was strange.” Around the time he was in junior or senior high school, Hiroshi first learned his father had experienced the atomic bombing when Mr. Kuruma spoke about how he recovered “thanks to a watermelon.”

For many years, on August 6, Hiroshi’s family has made sweet azuki bean rice and offered it at the family’s Buddhist altar, even after Mr. Kuruma’s death. “My children and I are here today because my father managed to survive the A-bombing. I’m grateful to him for that.”

(Originally published on October 9, 2024)

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