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Daigo Fukuryu Maru
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was a Japanese tuna fishing boat, which was exposed to and contaminated by nuclear fallout from the United States' Castle Bravo thermonuclear device test on Bikini Atoll, on March 1, 1954.
Kuboyama Aikichi, the boat's chief radioman, died half a year later, on September 23, 1954, suffering from acute radiation syndrome. He is considered the first victim of the hydrogen bomb of Operation Castle Bravo.
947, it launched from Koza, Wakayama, as a fishing boat named .
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was a Japanese tuna fishing boat, which was exposed to and contaminated by nuclear fallout from the United States' Castle Bravo thermonuclear device test on Bikini Atoll, on March 1, 1954.
Kuboyama Aikichi, the boat's chief radioman, died half a year later, on September 23, 1954, suffering from acute radiation syndrome. He is considered the first victim of the hydrogen bomb of Operation Castle Bravo.
Before the incident
In 1947, it launched from Koza, Wakayama, as a fishing boat named . Later it became a tuna fishing boat in Yaizu, Shizuoka, and was renamed the Daigo Fukuryu Maru.
Unexpected radioactive contamination
Daigo Fukuryu Maru encountered the fallout from the U.S. Castle Bravo nuclear test on the Bikini Atoll, near the Marshall Islands, on March 1, 1954. The boat, along with its 23 fishermen aboard, as well as their catch of fish, was contaminated. They returned to Yaizu, Japan on March 14. The crew members, suffering from nausea, headache, burns, pains in the eyes, bleeding from the gums, etc., were diagnosed with acute radiation syndrome and admitted to two Tokyo hospitals. On Sept. 23, chief radio operator Mr. Aikichi Kuboyama, 40, died — the first Japanese victim of a hydrogen bomb. He left these words: "I pray that I am the last victim of an atomic or hydrogen bomb."
When the test was held, the Daigo Fukuryu Maru was catching fish outside the danger zone which the U.S. government had declared in advance. However, the test was over twice as powerful as it was predicted to be, and changes in weather patterns blew nuclear fallout, in the form of a fine ash, outside of the danger zone. The fishermen realized the danger, and attempted to escape from the area, but they took time to retrieve fishing gear from the sea, causing them to be exposed to radioactive fallout for several hours.
Later, the United States expanded the danger zone and it was revealed that in addition to the Daigo Fukuryu Maru, many other fishery boats were in the expanded zone at the time. It is estimated that about a hundred fishing boats were contaminated to some degree by fallout from the test. Many hundreds of inhabitants of the Marshall Islands were also exposed, and a number of islands had to be evacuated entirely.
The tragedy of the Daigo Fukuryu Maru gave rise to a fierce anti-nuclear movement in Japan, rising especially from the fear that the contaminated fish had re-entered the market. The U.S. government feared this movement would lead to an anti-American movement, and attempted to quickly negotiate a settlement with the Japanese government (led at the time by the prime minister Yoshida Shigeru, who was considered to be a pro-U.S. politician). The U.S. government agreed to pay $2 million compensation to the Japanese for injuries or damage sustained as a result of the blast The Japanese government also acknowledged that it would not pursue further reparations from the U.S. government.
The Daigo Fukuryu Maru was saved in 1976 and is now on display in Tokyo at the Tokyo Metropolitan Daigo Fukuryu Maru Exhibition Hall.
See also
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