The fact that 992 Japanese vessels wereexposed to radiation due to U.S. nuclear tests is little known. More than10,000 sailors were affected, many of them young men in their teens tothirties. The red dots on the map indicate the locations where 356 of thesevessels caught tuna.
In 1985, high school students in Kochi,Japan, met a Nagasaki atomic bomb survivor whose son, a fisherman, had alsobeen exposed to nuclear tests in the Pacific. He fell ill and later took hisown life at 27. As the investigation continued, ex-sailors recounted fallingwhite ash and high rates of cancer and leukemia.
The sailors have repeatedly demanded truthand compensation, but the Japanese government has refused to respond. Articles6 and 7 of the TPNW call for assistance to individuals affected by the use andtesting of nuclear weapons. The sailors and their families stand with Hibakushaworldwide, determined to fight for the rights enshrined in the treaty.
The US conducted a total of 105 nucleartests in the Pacific. Not only sailorsbut also many islanders were exposed to radiation. Radioactive materials fellacross the world, including the U.S. mainland.
Head of the plaintiff group seekingcompensation. Her father, Tobei Oguro, was engaged in fishing aboard theDainana Dai Maru.Due to illness, he was forced to leave the vessel at the ageof 36.
At the age of 17, he boarded the Hime Maru.Exposed to radiation near Bikini Atoll in Mary 1954, he later fought forirradiated sailors’ rights. He passed away from cancer in 2019.
Exposed to the atomic bomb in Nagasaki, helater became a fisherman and encounterednuclear tests at the Pacific. His health deteriorated, and in 1960, at the ageof 27, he took his own life while hospitalized.
Radioman of the Daigo Fukuryu Maru. He was exposedto radiation in 1954 and died 6 months later. He left the words, "I wantto be the last victim of nuclear weapons.
