was a Japanese

physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...

who was an eyewitness when the ''

Little Boy Little Boy was a type of atomic bomb created by the Manhattan Project during World War II. The name is also often used to describe the specific bomb (L-11) used in the bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress ...

atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear expl ...

was dropped on

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui has b ...

by the ''

Enola Gay The ''Enola Gay'' () is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel (United States), Colonel Paul Tibbets. On 6 August 1945, during the final stages of World War II, it became the Atomi ...

'' on 6 August 1945. He treated survivors as a medical doctor and wrote about the effects of

radiation In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or a material medium. This includes: * ''electromagnetic radiation'' consisting of photons, such as radio waves, microwaves, infr ...

on the human body. 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 A hypocenter or hypocentre (), also called ground zero or surface zero, is the point on the Earth's surface directly below a nuclear explosion, meteor air burst, or other mid-air explosion. In seismology, the hypocenter of an earthquake is its p ...

when the bomb was dropped and he looked up and saw the

Boeing B-29 Superfortress The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is a retired American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the Bo ...

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 A mushroom cloud is a distinctive mushroom-shaped flammagenitus cloud of debris, smoke, and usually condensed water vapour resulting from a large explosion. The effect is most commonly associated with a nuclear explosion, but any sufficiently e ...

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 ' ( or ; or ; or ) is a word of Japanese origin generally designating the people affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States at the end of World War II. Definition The word is Japanese, originally written i ...

) for many years and he became the Director of the Hibakusha Counselling Centre. He also sought compensation from the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

government and advocated the abolition of nuclear weapons. His wife died in 2015; then Hida moved in with his son and daughter-in-law. Hida died from pneumonia on 20 March 2017 at the age of 100.

In Media

* 2005 ''

:'' He is interviewed in the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

drama documentary and shares his experiences which are re-enacted in a dramatic reconstruction of events. * 2006 '' White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki:'' A documentary in which he is interviewed. * 2015 '' Als die Sonne vom Himmel fiel'' ''(The Day The Sun Fell / 太陽が落ちた日):'' A documentary in which he is interviewed.

References

External links

Under the Mushroom-Shaped Cloud in Hiroshima - a memoir by Shuntaro Hida M.D.
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hida, Shuntaro 1917 births 2017 deaths Hibakusha Japanese men centenarians Japanese military doctors Nihon University alumni People of the Shōwa era Imperial Japanese Army personnel of World War II Imperial Japanese Army officers Scientists from Hiroshima