was a
survivor of the 1945
atomic bombing of Nagasaki, a prominent activist for a treaty prohibiting
nuclear weapons, and chairman of the Nagasaki Council of A-Bomb Sufferers.
Early life
Taniguchi Sumiteru was born in Fukuoka, Japan in 1929. His mother died when he was a year and a half old. After this, his father decided to relocate elsewhere for work and ended up being a locomotive operator in Manchuria. Taniguchi and his two brothers went to live with his mother's family in Nagasaki where he was raised by his aunt. In early 1943, Taniguchi began working as a carrier for the Nishiura-Kami post office in
Nagasaki
is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan.
It became the sole Nanban trade, port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hi ...
.
He continued this into 1945 when the nuclear explosion took place
Atomic bombing of Nagasaki
On the morning of 9 August 1945, the 16-year-old Taniguchi was approximately north from the
hypocenter
In seismology, a hypocenter or hypocentre () is the point of origin of an earthquake or a subsurface nuclear explosion. A synonym is the focus of an earthquake.
Earthquakes
An earthquake's hypocenter is the position where the strain energy ...
, delivering mail on his bicycle without a shirt on due to the warm summer weather, when "
Fat Man
"Fat Man" (also known as Mark III) is the codename for the type of nuclear bomb the United States detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. It was the second of the only two nuclear weapons ever used in warfare, the fir ...
" exploded in the sky over
Urakami
Urakami was an area in the northern part of the city of Nagasaki, Japan.
History
In 1614, by the orders of shōgun leader Tokugawa Ieyasu, Christianity was banned in Japan in order to suppress European influence and to prevent the undermining of ...
. The bomb's heat flash heavily injured Taniguchi with near instant burns resulting, but the blast that arrived afterward did not cause any severe injuries to him, as he clung to the ground while buildings were blown down around him.
Heavy burns melted skin from his back and left arm, but Taniguchi states that he did not bleed or feel any pain due to the nerve endings being burned away. Tired and disoriented, he walked over to the tunnel of Mitsubishi Sumiyoshi Tunnel Arms Factory located about 200 meters away from where he was at the time of the blast, where a female survivor assisted in cutting off loose portions of skin and rubbed machine oil on his damaged arm.
Recovery
Taniguchi's business card featured this photograph with the caption, "I want you to understand, if only a little, the horror of nuclear weapons."
Come nightfall Taniguchi was carried to a hill to rest, where he was surrounded by confused and thirsty survivors. The next morning everyone but Taniguchi was dead. During the next two days rescue teams passed by without noticing him, as he was too weak to muster a call for help.
Taniguchi was finally rescued on 11 August and taken to a country clinic about 29 km (18 miles) away from Nagasaki. By mid-September he was moved to a primary school clinic in Nagasaki to receive the first course of medical treatment from a University Hospital team. The clinic was unsanitary and initial treatments proved inadequate as his wounds
became infected and worsened.
In November Taniguchi was transferred to
Omura Navy Hospital, where he spent the next 21 months lying on his stomach due to the severe
third degree burns
A burn is an injury to skin, or other tissues, caused by heat, cold, electricity, chemicals, friction, or ultraviolet radiation (like sunburn). Most burns are due to heat from hot liquids (called scalding), solids, or fire. Burns occur mai ...
on his back. During this time Taniguchi developed severe
bedsores on his chest. As he recalls, "holes opened between my ribs and the movement of my heart and other organs became visible through the skin."
In October 1945, U.S. Marine photographer
Joe O'Donnell snapped a picture of Taniguchi's back while recording the aftermath of the bombing in 50 Japanese cities; this photograph is now exhibited in museums as a graphic depiction of the injuries sustained by survivors of the bombings.
The color photograph(s) of Sumiteru Taniguchi's red back are from motion picture film taken by (attributed to) Lieutenant Herbert Sussan. Sergeant Joe O'Donnell took an earlier black and white photograph and this is included in his book, ''Japan 1945: A U.S. Marine's Photographs from Ground Zero''.
By May 1947, Taniguchi could finally sit up, and on 20 March 1949, he was discharged from the Omura hospital.
He returned to work back at the post office in Nagasaki shortly upon discharge despite needing to receive medical treatment and doctors advising him that he would not be able to. His wounds were not treated properly until 1960, however, and continued to cause him great physical discomfort until his death. The improper burn healing and to some degree the delayed
stochastic effects of radiation exposure during and after the bombings manifested in the growth of numerous burn
keloid tumors.
From 2007 until his death, Taniguchi had undergone ten surgeries to remove benign growths. Taniguchi also had multiple skin grafting surgeries on his back and left arm.
Activism
Taniguchi devoted his life to informing people of the consequences of the 1945 atomic bombing and campaigning against nuclear proliferation.
He made frequent public appearances to speak to student groups and participate in demonstrations calling for
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
* Nuclea ...
.
Taniguchi gave numerous interviews recounting his experiences and was featured in
Steven Okazaki's 2007 documentary ''
White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki''.
Death
Taniguchi died of
duodenal papilla cancer in Nagasaki on 30 August 2017 at the age of 88.
[washingtonpost.com]
''Japanese survivor of Nagasaki atomic attack bared his scars to plead against nuclear war''
/ref>
References
See also
*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 ...
*Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), or the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty, is the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons with the ultimate goal being their total elimination. It ...
- Preamble
{{DEFAULTSORT:Taniguchi, Sumiteru
1929 births
2017 deaths
Hibakusha
Japanese anti–nuclear weapons activists
People from Nagasaki Prefecture
Mail carriers
Deaths from cancer in Japan
Deaths from small intestine cancer