The Hiroshima Maidens ( ja, 原爆乙女(''Genbaku otome''); "atomic bomb maidens") are a group of 25

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese women who were school age girls when they were seriously disfigured as a result of the thermal flash of the

fission bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

dropped on

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...

on the morning of August 6, 1945. They subsequently went on a highly publicized journey to get reconstructive surgery in the US in 1955.

Keloid Keloid, also known as keloid disorder and keloidal scar, is the formation of a type of scar which, depending on its maturity, is composed mainly of either type III (early) or type I (late) collagen. It is a result of an overgrowth of granulation ...

scars from their burns marred their faces and many of their hand burns healed into bent claw-like positions. These women, as well as the other citizens affected by the A-bomb, were referred to as ''

hibakusha ''Hibakusha'' ( or ; ja, 被爆者 or ; "person affected by a bomb" or "person affected by exposure o radioactivity) is a word of Japanese origin generally designating the people affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at th ...

'', meaning "explosion-affected people".

Creation

By 1951, Hiroshima bomb survivor Shigeko Niimoto had endured several unsuccessful Japanese operations to repair scarring on her face. Following a Christian church meeting with Reverend

Kiyoshi Tanimoto was a Methodist minister famous for his work for the Hiroshima Maidens. He was one of the six Hiroshima survivors whose experiences of the bomb and later life are portrayed in John Hersey's book ''Hiroshima''. The 1985 edition contains an upd ...

, he invited her to a meeting of bomb-affected people. Upon arriving and finding the meetings discussion too political for her tastes, Niimoto suggested to Rev. Tanimoto that they form a

support group In a support group, members provide each other with various types of help, usually nonprofessional and nonmaterial, for a particular shared, usually burdensome, characteristic. Members with the same issues can come together for sharing coping str ...

for the

dozen A dozen (commonly abbreviated doz or dz) is a grouping of twelve. The dozen may be one of the earliest primitive integer groupings, perhaps because there are approximately a dozen cycles of the Moon, or months, in a cycle of the Sun, or yea ...

or so young women who he knew with similar injuries and concerns. Soon they were meeting regularly in the basement of his church. The women had all experienced similar lives following the war, such as being hidden from view by parents, stared at when they ventured outside, unwanted by employers, and rejected as potential wives for fear they were genetically damaged. As Tanimoto had gained some fame in America as a subject of a celebrated 1946 magazine/book article by journalist

John Hersey John Richard Hersey (June 17, 1914 – March 24, 1993) was an American writer and journalist. He is considered one of the earliest practitioners of the so-called New Journalism, in which storytelling techniques of fiction are adapted to no ...

titled ''

'', Tanimoto joined American journalists to create a charitable foundation to help victims of Hiroshima and "explore the ways of peace". Hersey, Pearl S. Buck,

Norman Cousins Norman Cousins (June 24, 1915 – November 30, 1990) was an American political journalist, author, professor, and world peace advocate. Early life Cousins was born to Jewish immigrant parents Samuel Cousins and Sarah Babushkin Cousins, in Wes ...

and Reverend Marvin Green were Tanimoto's partners in the Hiroshima Peace Centre Foundation. The group of scarred women was one of the foundation's projects, with Tanimoto calling it the Society of

Girls. Following the help from newspaper columnist, Shizue Masugi, Tanimoto began raising funds to get

plastic surgery Plastic surgery is a surgical specialty involving the restoration, reconstruction or alteration of the human body. It can be divided into two main categories: reconstructive surgery and cosmetic surgery. Reconstructive surgery includes craniof ...

for his group. Newspapers dubbed them ''genbaku otome'', or "atomic bomb maidens", and in 1952 about 20 of them were treated in Tokyo and Osaka. Plastic surgery in Japan was not as advanced as it was in the United States so Tanimoto tried to find a way to get the "maidens" to America. Once aware of his efforts, '' Saturday Review'' editor

pledged to help Tanimoto. They found two doctors, William Maxwell Hitzig and Arthur Barsky of

Mount Sinai Hospital, New York Mount Sinai Hospital, founded in 1852, is one of the oldest and largest teaching hospitals in the United States. It is located in East Harlem in the New York City borough of Manhattan, on the eastern border of Central Park stretching along Ma ...

, who were willing to supervise the medical operations, however Cousins suffered multiple rejections for financial support to transport the women to America. Janet E. Tobitt, the former Director of the Far East American Girl Scout Association in Japan, suggested he make an appeal to the editor of the Nippon Times. Cousins acted on Tobitt's suggestion, and consequently General John E. Hull of the U.S. Far East Command agreed to provide air transportation for the women. On May 5, 1955, a group of 25 women in their teens and twenties departed for America. The more specific nickname for the group – the Hiroshima Maidens – caught on when the women were brought to New York to undergo multiple reconstructive surgeries at Mount Sinai Hospital. This highly publicized turn of events was largely the work of Cousins, an outspoken advocate of

nuclear disarmament Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the nucleus of the atom: *Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics * Nuclear power * Nuclear reactor * Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine * Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics *Nuclear space *Nucl ...

. Tobitt, together with C. Frank Ortloff of the

Religious Society of Friends Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...

, was in charge of the “very substantial problem of out-of-hospital care” which involved the women staying in private homes in New York City as they prepared for, or recuperated from, multiple operations.

Media in the West

Following their arrival, Tanimoto was the subject of the US TV program '' This Is Your Life'' on May 11, 1955. Before a studio audience, guests came forward to illustrate pivotal moments in Tanimoto's life. In the line-up were two of the Hiroshima maidens, their faces hidden behind a screen, and most surprising Captain Robert Lewis, the co-pilot of the plane, the

Enola Gay The ''Enola Gay'' () is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. On 6 August 1945, piloted by Tibbets and Robert A. Lewis during the final stages of World War II, it be ...

, that dropped the

Little Boy "Little Boy" was the type of atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 during World War II, making it the first nuclear weapon used in warfare. The bomb was dropped by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress ''Enola Gay'' ...

bomb on Hiroshima. In all, 138 surgeries were performed on 25 women over 18 months during their stay in the US. On their visit, the women lived a
Pendle Hill
a

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...

retreat center in Wallingford, PA. Hiroko Tasaka, heard in the following Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) clip, was known as "Champion Surgery Girl" because she had 13 operations, more than anyone else. One maiden, Tomoko Nakabayashi, died of cardiac arrest while undergoing a reconstruction operation on 24 May 1956; the cause was declared by the doctors to have been from complications/errors in the operation, not from radiation effects.

Atomic Bomb Maidens

Not all the atomic bomb maidens left for the US. Miyoko Matsubara states that she was one of 16 young "Hiroshima maidens" who received surgeries in Tokyo and then Osaka in 1953. After the 10 successful operations, together with 2 other Hiroshima maidens, they were then well enough and thus started work as live-in caretakers to disadvantaged children. When time came in 1955 to travel to Mt. Sinai Hospital in the US, unlike her two colleagues, she did not feel comfortable traveling to the country that bombed her and was "left behind alone". None of the nearly equally disfigured young women at

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the Na ...

following the

Fat Man "Fat Man" (also known as Mark III) is the codename for the type of nuclear bomb the United States Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki#Bombing of Nagasaki, detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. It was the second ...

fission bomb explosion on August 9, 1945, were in the group. There was no comparative Nagasaki Maiden charity organization: there was an effort from US cities to sponsor scarred survivors to travel to receive medical treatment, but this move is said to have been derailed by the US government. Moreover, when the women traveled to the US, three Hiroshima surgeons came along, to study the American plastic surgery techniques. This medical training was done free of charge. Presumably there were as many scarred boys/young men as there were girls/young women from the

bomb at Hiroshima, who also could not marry and were forced to live in the "twilight society of Hiroshima". However, they did not receive the same level of media and medical attention as the young women did. The use of the term "

maiden Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern ...

" reveals the focus was on their attempts to attain romantic prospects with men.

Life after reconstruction

A number of the maidens married and became mothers. Some gravitated towards social work. Toyoko Morita attended

Parsons School of Design Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhat ...

, and later became a well known fashion designer in Japan. One maiden, Masako Tachibana, married and moved to Canada. She was not able to have children. On August 1, 1995, she gave an interview to reporter Len Grant of CBC Television. She said although she was a schoolgirl ordered to demolish buildings to create firebreaks at the time of the bombing, and the bomb's flash ignited her clothes on fire, and it made her vomit (a symptom of acute radiation syndrome) – she was glad the US had dropped the bomb. Tachibana said it was justified because it brought the war to a quicker resolution: Without it she does not believe the Japanese would have surrendered. Instead, more lives would have been lost, possibly close to all of Japan's population. She is the author of the Japanese book ''Reaction to the flash''. , 164,621 living ''

'' were certified by the Japanese government, with an average age of 81.41. The number of living Hiroshima maidens/atomic bomb maidens is not generally published separately.

List

*Yoshue Harada *Misako Kannabe *Tomoko Nakabayashi *Shigeko Niimoto *Suzue Oshima * Shigeko Sasamori *Masako Tachibana *Hiroko Tasaka *Atsuko Yamamoto *Michiko Yamaoka *Miyoko Matsubara (did not travel to the US)

In popular culture

The Hiroshima Maidens have been the subject of a movie titled ''Hiroshima Maiden'' (1988), depicting a particular case of such a maiden and the American family with which she stayed.

References

External links

White Light/Black Rain Official Website
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080605071917/http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/whitelightblackrain/index.html , date=2008-06-05 (film)
CBC Archives 1957 broadcast

Maidens Women in World War II Japanese women Anti–nuclear weapons movement Articles containing video clips 20th-century Japanese women