Interview with Matashichi Oishi, one of the former crewman of Daigo Fukuryu Maru (part 2)

Below is the transcript of the conversation taken from Hiroshima Peace Media Center

Part 2: “Kuboyama suffered and died”

What was the effect on your health?
Later I learned that the white ash was highly radioactive and that it was white because it was coral. That evening we began to suffer from dizziness, nausea and diarrhea, but it wasn’t so bad that we needed to go to bed, so we didn’t talk much about it with each other. Later, starting from about the second day, our faces and other places the ash had touched began to blister. There was water in them. They were burns from the radiation. After about 10 days we took some of our hair in our hands and it fell right out. We finally began to realize it might be because of the white powder. We spent two weeks returning to our home port of Yaizu. During that time there was a lot of ash on the ship. We spent two weeks amid that radioactive ash.

Later our skin turned black and peeled off. We didn’t really know what the cause was, so the two of us with the worst problem went to the University of Tokyo to be examined by a specialist. The next day the story was leaked to a newspaper and appeared in the paper, so the whole country learned of it. The fact that we had been exposed to fallout from a nuclear weapon was all over the news, and there was a big uproar about it. We were shocked too.

What was Mr. Kuboyama’s condition then?
I happened to have been hospitalized in the same room with Kuboyama, so I could observe his condition right up until the time he died. In my mind I can still see him in that pitiful condition. We didn’t know it at the time, but we were all infected with the hepatitis C virus through blood transfusions. I think what harmed Kuboyama most was the hepatitis C virus. His liver was damaged, and he got encephalopathy. He would lose consciousness or flail about ? things like that. But it was not only Kuboyama who was like that ? we all were. As I watched Kuboyama suffer and die, I wondered who was going to be next.

At that time we were given a lot of transfusions. The equipment used for giving transfusions was not good, and later the doctor said we were easily infected because we received a lot of transfusions in a weakened state. So, of course, I had hepatitis C too, and now I have cancer. I had surgery, and fortunately it was a success. But my first child was stillborn and deformed besides. It was a terrible shock.