THE ATOM: Ashes to Ashes

The H-bomb claimed its first victim last week.

Aikichi Kuboyama was only an obscure Japanese tuna fisherman on the January morning he put to sea with crewmates of the trawler Fortunate Dragon. The father of three girls, he liked to spend his time ashore tinkering with neighbors’ ailing radios and puttering in his garden. Sometimes he dreamed of quitting the sea and becoming a florist.

Unawaredly, the Fortunate Dragon cruised too close to the site of the U.S. H-bomb test in the Pacific (TIME, March 29). The test released more energy than the scientists had anticipated; Aikichi and his crewmates were liberally sprinkled with the fine white dust of the blast, which the Japanese have since come to know as shi no hai (the ashes of death).

As U.S. and Japanese authorities haggled over the apportionment of blame and indemnity, the people of Japan anxiously watched the progress of their newly famed invalids. Most of the Dragon’s crew responded to blood transfusion and antibiotics, but Radioman Kuboyama, who reportedly had a medical history of liver trouble, was not so lucky. Early last month, after seemingly recovering only to relapse again, he fell into a coma. Three weeks ago he revived slightly, but last week, as two doctors and his devoted family kept vigil, Aikichi Kuboyama died.

Some doctors, citing Kuboyama’s bad liver, apparently questioned whether radiation had been the cause of death. But the cause was officially announced as “radiation disease.” U.S. Ambassador John Allison issued a prompt statement of “extreme sorrow” and presented the dead fisherman’s widow with a check for 1,000,000 yen ($2,777). But twinges of anti-U.S. sentiment flickered across the islands; delegations of tuna fishermen marched up and down before Japan’s Foreign Ministry demanding an immediate halt of U.S. H-bomb tests, and scores of protesting Japanese paraded on foot or in trucks before the U.S. embassy.