A Nagasaki survivor and physician recounts his life's work
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What was Dr. Tomonaga’s earliest memory of the Nagasaki bombing?
Hey there, it's Ira Flato, and you're listening to Science Friday. This week marks the anniversary of the U.S. 's bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So today we're resharing this conversation from last year, memorializing the 80th anniversary. An estimated 210,000 people died instantly or within five months of the bombings. Another 210,000 survived and became known as hibakusha in Japanese. For decades, hibakusha have been receiving medical care at specialized hospitals designed to care for atom bomb survivors. And to this day, those hospitals are busy and filled with survivors who have suffered the medical consequences of the bombings. Dr. Masao Tomonaga was a doctor at one of these hospitals. He was just two years old in Nagasaki when the U.S.
bombed the city. Years later, he became a physician and ultimately ran a Red Cross hospital in Nagasaki that cared for Hibakusha just like himself. Now, he directs a nursing home for Hibakusha and still sees patients regularly. Dr. Tomonaga is my guest on Science Friday today. Welcome to the show. Nice to meet you. Thank you. You were only two years old when the U.S. bombed Nagasaki. What was your first memory of the aftermath?
I have no memory of atomic bombing in Nagasaki, especially what happened in our house.
How did Dr. Tomonaga’s father become involved in caring for hibakusha?
Later, when I became age four or five, my mother explained what happened. My mother was preparing lunch on the first floor, and I was sleeping on the second floor. But suddenly, the blast came, and our Japanese wooden house half-broken. Not completely, half broken. So my mother came up to broken second floor and found me in a narrow space under the roof. And she took me out successfully. If she was not successful to take out me from the space, Maybe I was burned by a firestorm, after one hour or two hours. So I was a lucky boy, I was a lucky boy. There were many unlucky boys and girls, yeah.
Your father was a physician, he was a doctor. Was your father working as a doctor during the bombings?
No. My father actually stationed in Taiwan. He was serving Japanese Army Air Force as medic. My father first received information about Nagasaki disaster by bombing. He first thought, His wife and newborn son already dead, but one month later, a letter from my mother reached him. So he was so glad to read.
So he came back to Nagasaki. Did he take care of the survivors when he returned?
Why did Dr. Tomonaga choose hematology and study radiation‑induced leukemia?
Yes.
Yeah, he became one of the main doctors who take care of atomic bomb survivors, especially as a hematologist. It's a blood disease specialist. And later, my father found among children, acute leukemia case started to increase. So the leukemia was due to the radiation? Yeah, this was actually due to radiation because the distance from the ground zero, this distance, shorter the distance, the increased incidence of acute leukemia among citizens was increased. We call it dose-dependent. Dependency was clearly shown.
So your father was one of the first people to realize that the leukemia he was seeing was becoming more common in the survivors, correct?
Correct, correct. That was happening also in Hiroshima City simultaneously, as if there were two experiments of massive radiation on citizens.
So let's move a little bit ahead. Why did you decide to become a doctor?
My family was actually from my grand-grandfather, all doctors. So I was grown up surrounding doctors. So it was my natural place. will to become a doctor. And more than that, when I became high school boy, I must prepare for examination in medical school. My knowledge about atomic bomb-induced leukemia was increased, so I have a fear I should be also becoming a leukemia patient. So I finally decided to go to medical school to learn why leukemia was induced by radiation, atomic bomb radiation.
After you graduated medical school, why did you want to study and take care of other survivors?
What long‑term cancers and blood disorders have emerged among survivors?
Why was that important to you?
Yeah. When I become a doctor and I decided to enter hematology to study and treat leukemia patients as a hibakusha care doctor. Yeah. So this continued over entire my life. because the diseases which developed from atomic bomb survivors continued even now, even now.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What was Dr. Tomonaga’s earliest memory of the Nagasaki bombing?
0:02–1:42
2
How did Dr. Tomonaga’s father become involved in caring for hibakusha?
1:42–3:47
3
Why did Dr. Tomonaga choose hematology and study radiation‑induced leukemia?
3:47–6:31
4
What long‑term cancers and blood disorders have emerged among survivors?
6:31–8:53
5
How did researchers uncover the genetic mechanisms behind radiation‑related diseases?
8:53–10:42
6
What psychological impacts do hibakusha experience decades after the bombing?
10:42–13:17
7
How does the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Hospital care for its aging survivor population today?
13:17–15:16
8
What message does Dr. Tomonaga have for the world on the 80th anniversary of the bombings?
15:16–18:09
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