Pediatric faculty of Kyushu seminar, October, 1949. Dr. Yamazaki pictured first in front row.
Through the grapevine we soon learned of misgivings about the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission among the citizenry of Nagasaki. Many survivors thought we had come to use them simply as guinea pigs and that our sole interest was to gain information to protect Americans in the United States in the event of an atomic attack. They were skeptical about our real concern for them. I felt it was imperative to explain the Commissions's medical mission to the medical community and to government officials.
Nagasaki, a city of approximately 260,000 people, lies on the southerstern tip of the Island of Kyushu, the southernmost of the main Japanese islands. It was in the middle of the Urakami Valley that the atomic bomb burst. The mountain rim on the east rim of the valley had acted as a shield preventing the total destruction of the city that Hiroshima had encountered because it was built on a flat delta.
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