Documenting Hiroshima of 1945: October 8–11, “it’s too late” for filming of treatment
Oct. 10, 2024
by Kyosuke Mizukawa, Senior Staff Writer
During the period October 8–11, 1945, members of a medical team at Nippon Eigasha (Japan Movie Co.) and photographer Shunkichi Kikuchi, who was in charge of photography for the film company, engaged in filming at Hiroshima Teishin Hospital (in Hiroshima’s present-day Naka Ward), located around 1.4 kilometers from the hypocenter. In the hospital’s reinforced concrete building, whose windows had been blown out by the atomic bomb’s blast, physicians were engaged in the treatment of patients.
Masao Yamanaka, a member of Nippon Eigasha’s film crew who died in 1978 at the age of 76, had previously met with the hospital’s director Michihiko Hachiya and others on October 4. Although Mr. Yamanaka’s team aimed at producing a documentary film on damages caused by the atomic bombing, he wrote in a daily film log entry on that date that he had been told “it’s too late” to film.
The hospital had treated thousands of victims in the roughly one-month period since the atomic bombing. Mr. Hachiya closely monitored how his patients’ symptoms had changed over time. In the beginning, those with burns or other severe visible wounds died one after the other. Starting around August 20, people who had developed problems with hematopoietic blood-production functions, including internal hemorrhagic spotting and decreased white blood cell counts, were dying.
However, around the middle of September, the hospital no longer had any critically ill patients of uncertain prognoses, according to Mr. Hachiya’s book Hiroshima Diary, in the entry dated September 15, 1945. He was able to confirm that the hemorrhagic spotting had disappeared in some of the patients. Based on subsequent research, it is now believed that the second phase of significant acute radiation health effects, marked by deaths from blood disorders, had generally lasted until the end of September 1945.
According to Mr. Yamanaka’s film log entry dated October 4, 1945, Mr. Hachiya and other hospital staff had said, “Those admitted to our hospital are patients who have lost homes to return to or are orphaned children, among others, and face extreme poverty, with no housing to protect them despite the weather growing cold or sufficient nutrition.” In addition, even after the peak in deaths, radiation health effects and deep scars in patients suffering from wounds or burns remained.
Nippon Eigasha staff and Mr. Kikuchi filmed the treatment of Hisa Matsushita, 48 at the time, who had lost her left eye in the atomic bombing and died in 1982 at the age of 85. Shards of broken glass were impaled in her left eye after she had experienced the bombing at her home in the area of Noboricho (in Hiroshima’s present-day Naka Ward), located around 1.1 kilometers from the hypocenter. In September, she had undergone surgery to remove the eyeball, but “her condition after the operation is not good,” wrote Mr. Kikuchi in a notebook he left behind. Ms. Matsushita had also lost two daughters in the atomic bombing.
(Originally published on October 10, 2024)
During the period October 8–11, 1945, members of a medical team at Nippon Eigasha (Japan Movie Co.) and photographer Shunkichi Kikuchi, who was in charge of photography for the film company, engaged in filming at Hiroshima Teishin Hospital (in Hiroshima’s present-day Naka Ward), located around 1.4 kilometers from the hypocenter. In the hospital’s reinforced concrete building, whose windows had been blown out by the atomic bomb’s blast, physicians were engaged in the treatment of patients.
Masao Yamanaka, a member of Nippon Eigasha’s film crew who died in 1978 at the age of 76, had previously met with the hospital’s director Michihiko Hachiya and others on October 4. Although Mr. Yamanaka’s team aimed at producing a documentary film on damages caused by the atomic bombing, he wrote in a daily film log entry on that date that he had been told “it’s too late” to film.
The hospital had treated thousands of victims in the roughly one-month period since the atomic bombing. Mr. Hachiya closely monitored how his patients’ symptoms had changed over time. In the beginning, those with burns or other severe visible wounds died one after the other. Starting around August 20, people who had developed problems with hematopoietic blood-production functions, including internal hemorrhagic spotting and decreased white blood cell counts, were dying.
However, around the middle of September, the hospital no longer had any critically ill patients of uncertain prognoses, according to Mr. Hachiya’s book Hiroshima Diary, in the entry dated September 15, 1945. He was able to confirm that the hemorrhagic spotting had disappeared in some of the patients. Based on subsequent research, it is now believed that the second phase of significant acute radiation health effects, marked by deaths from blood disorders, had generally lasted until the end of September 1945.
According to Mr. Yamanaka’s film log entry dated October 4, 1945, Mr. Hachiya and other hospital staff had said, “Those admitted to our hospital are patients who have lost homes to return to or are orphaned children, among others, and face extreme poverty, with no housing to protect them despite the weather growing cold or sufficient nutrition.” In addition, even after the peak in deaths, radiation health effects and deep scars in patients suffering from wounds or burns remained.
Nippon Eigasha staff and Mr. Kikuchi filmed the treatment of Hisa Matsushita, 48 at the time, who had lost her left eye in the atomic bombing and died in 1982 at the age of 85. Shards of broken glass were impaled in her left eye after she had experienced the bombing at her home in the area of Noboricho (in Hiroshima’s present-day Naka Ward), located around 1.1 kilometers from the hypocenter. In September, she had undergone surgery to remove the eyeball, but “her condition after the operation is not good,” wrote Mr. Kikuchi in a notebook he left behind. Ms. Matsushita had also lost two daughters in the atomic bombing.
(Originally published on October 10, 2024)