Shuntaro Hida (肥田舜太郎, Hida Shuntaro, born 1 January 1917 – 20 March 2017) was a Japanese physician who was an eyewitness when the Little Boy atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima by the Enola Gay on 6 August 1945. He treated survivors as a medical doctor and wrote about the effects of radiation on the human body.
Shuntaro Hida | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1 January 1917 |
| Died | 20 March 2017 (aged 100) |
| Alma mater | Nihon University |
| Occupation(s) | Physician, doctor |
| Known for | Doctor during Hiroshima bombing |
The night before the bomb was dropped 28-year-old Dr. Hida left the Hiroshima Military Hospital where he was stationed as an army medical officer to attend to a sick child in the village of Hesaka. He was therefore approximately 6 kilometers from ground zero when the bomb was dropped[1] and he looked up and saw the Boeing B-29 Superfortress aircraft which he described as appearing like a "tiny silver drop". He then felt the heat and blast from the explosion and saw the mushroom cloud over the city. As a medical doctor he treated the wounded and saw the short- and long-term effects of radiation on the human body.
After the war he continued to treat atomic bomb survivors (known as Hibakusha) for many years and he became the Director of the Hibakusha Counselling Centre. He also sought compensation from the United States government and advocated the abolition of nuclear weapons. In 2005 he was interviewed for the BBC drama documentary Hiroshima and his experiences were re-enacted in a dramatic reconstruction of events. He was also interviewed for the documentary White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 2006.[2]
His wife died in 2015; then Hida moved in with his son and daughter-in-law.[citation needed]
Hida died from pneumonia on 20 March 2017 at the age of 100.[3][4]
References
edit- ^ "Shuntaro Hida - Memoir". Wcpeace.org. Retrieved 2017-03-21.
- ^ "Shuntaro Hida - biography". Wcpeace.org. 1945-08-06. Retrieved 2017-03-21.
- ^ "訃報：肥田舜太郎さん１００歳＝広島原爆で被爆の医師 - 毎日新聞". Mainichi.jp (in Japanese). 2017-02-13. Retrieved 2017-03-21.
- ^ Stafford, Ned (2017). "Shuntaro Hida". BMJ. 357: j1996. doi:10.1136/bmj.j1996. PMID 28442510. S2CID 45782421.