<Begin Segment 39>

TI: So let's go to Nagasaki, so the focus of your work. And explain to me what you did in terms of your studies. How did you conduct your studies?

JY: I was given no specific instructions how to proceed, that was in charge of the program, and that I would... I guess they assumed that I would find some way as to how to develop some rapport with the community, both the citizenry and the medical people. So I just followed some of the kind of things perhaps my dad would do. You had to talk to people, sit down, and do... having heard about the kempeis, my first visit was to this chief of police. I tell him, I just assumed he knew all about me when I arrived in my housing situation, so that I just assumed that he knew that, which I was sure he knew. So we told him what our purpose to be in the city was, that I knew nothing about what happened, knew nothing about radiation, and I would ask their help, they acquainted me with this situation.

TI: So let me paraphrase. So the kempei is like a police official?

JY: Secret police. Sort of combination of FBI and the regular police department.

TI: Okay, so here you are, because you were a government official, thinking that because he's in that capacity, would know who you are, because you wanted to let him know what you were doing.

JY: Yes, when I'm in town.

TI: And how you're going to go into these, into the community and get connected. And yet, you admitted that you knew nothing about what really happened and the effects of radiation. So what was his response?

JY: Well, I said I would really like to know, and he said, "I was the air raid official for the city at the time." And he proceeded to tell me his experience of that day, and spent quite a bit of time. And apparently people knew I was going to see him, so then there was a memorandum I found out five years later that I had seen this chief of police and that's when I started my query.

TI: And so he can give you kind of the big overview of what happened.

JY: Yes, he did, and what he observed.

TI: And do you recall anything that he said that was really striking or that you really remember?

JY: Yeah, it was very striking because he said that this explosion occurred, and they thought it was an earthquake or something. And as soon as he was able to send a squad out to find what happened, they said it seemed like it came from Urakami Valley, which is where the bomb fell. So when the unit that he sent out returned about fifteen minutes that there's no way of getting back into the valley, the fire consumed the whole area and you just can't get in. and then about two or three hours after the explosion, people started to filter past his office. That required the people going over the mountain ridge into the next valley and then coming by his office.

TI: So his office was actually not located right in Nagasaki, but it was a little big away from ground zero?

JY: It was in Nagasaki in the main part of the city. There's two valleys, Urakami Valley is the valley industrial section where the big armament factory, torpedo factories was located. And it's about a mile wide, about two miles long, and that's where the bomb dropped.

TI: So he could explain sort of... yeah, he was there the day, so he would see the first people who emerged. And what did he, how did he explain that?

JY: So he told me, and he gave me an overview, a couple hours or so, that, first of all, I felt I better go see this place right away, see what remains. And so I took, the next day I took a trip up to the valley, started getting acquainted with the premises.

TI: So when you go to, you say you went to ground zero?

JY: Yeah.

TI: What was, even though this was, what, three years after, what was there?

JY: Well, I guess I first went up the mountainside where there was a medical school, I guess. They told me where the medical school was, about half a mile from the ground zero. It was still deserted, and all the debris was still there. And from there we went down into the valley where the center, what they called the ground zero hypocenter, just below the, on the ground above which the bomb exploded. And there was a burn there, and there's some data there about the number of people killed, number of homes destroyed, and statistics, and sort of a memorial ground, but they were wooden structures. So it gave the idea of the enormity of the atomic attack. So that's where I started from.

TI: So I'm curious, even though it's three years after, was the area still pretty radioactive?

JY: No, no. One of the main thing about the, of the Manhattan Project that developed the bomb, their assignment was to go to see if the ground was, radioactivity was present to see if it would allow the army forces to come in to Nagasaki. And so that the assignment that the Dr. Stafford Warren had was to make certain that they wouldn't expose the marine brigade that was going to land, that they would not be exposed to radioactivity that would harm then.

TI: Oh, so you had, you knew this then?

JY: No.

TI: Oh, you didn't know this?

JY: I had no idea about it.

TI: Well, so when you when you were training, weren't you a little apprehensive about going to a place that potentially had...

JY: I didn't know anything about radioactivity, so I didn't have those fears at all. Or any ideas of... but the later story was that Dr. Warren did give the army okay to land, marines to land there.

TI: So this is an interesting point. So Dr. Stafford Warren had done these preliminary studies, or studies right after the aftereffect. He had this knowledge, here you come to do additional studies, and you weren't given access to this important data.

JY: Yeah. And he didn't tell me when I met him before I came to Japan.

TI: Because he was one of the people who wanted you to go and do this study.

JY: That's right.

TI: So why...

JY: Well, he was constrained by this policy of secrecy. What was the division of secrecy for civilian purposes for weapons information? There's big discussions of what information should be given out. The Japanese weren't told about that. And so this was pervasive kind of information, it's why the people in the country still don't know what happened too well.

TI: Yeah, just as I hear this, and this was, just occurred to me. So it's almost like when you describe how really you were a young doctor, you went over there, and you weren't given really any plan on how to do this, they say, "Just do it." They had all this important information and data that they didn't share with you. In some ways it almost sounds like they were setting you up to fail, that they were making this really a difficult situation for someone like you to actually succeed and get valuable information to actually make a difference.

JY: When the Japanese doctors, when I met them, eventually we were introduced and we met with them many times under different circumstances. They immediately knew I didn't know a damn thing. And my impression was that they treated me as a doctor that wanted to find out what happened, and that's the way, from what they did after our first visit, that was what they did. And I didn't know about all the secrecy situation that prevented our having the information. So besides, they were the ones that gave the information to the United States, the initial commission that went to investigate. It was their observation of what happened in days and the immediate weeks. Because the first time the, Stafford Warren went to, occupation of Japan started the first of September 1945. The bomb dropped on August 6th, and the commission was actually formed on October 14th or 15th. And so that was just the beginning of the information gathering of the human effects. Stafford Warren went to Nagasaki to determine the effects of the bomb there. Perhaps because the bomb that was dropped in Nagasaki is the one they tested in Los Alamos, it was a plutonium bomb, and of the same type of construction as one that was used in Nagasaki. So there were a lot of data that they had to correlate. Perhaps that was the reason they concentrated on Nagasaki.

TI: Okay. And it sounds like although you didn't get access to the report, you had access to the people that supplied the information. So it just took a little longer.

JY: That's right. And I think I had better information, just as good as, information as the secret report.

<End Segment 39> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.