In this series, The Asahi Shimbun traces the impact on children of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Their stories are told through interviews with their families, and from the memoirs of survivors and records compiled by Hiroshima city. The photos were provided by the bereaved families. Some of the images were colorized using artificial intelligence technology with the help of Hiroshi Ishikawa, a professor at Waseda University’s Faculty of Science and Engineering, whose team developed the technology.

This is the second installment in the series.

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Nearly 10 years after the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, young survivors who had previously been healthy began falling ill.

Among them were three whose stories we will tell. One was a girl who was noted for her calmness. Another was a boy who was popular with his peers. The third was a high school student who had lost his mother.

HIROKO’S STORY

Hiroko Miyahara was an intelligent and composed elementary school fifth-grader. She had even been deputy class leader.

From around the fourth grade, Hiroko started to seem fatigued. At home, she would often lie on the tatami mat and not attempt to get up.

When she went to see a local doctor, she was immediately advised to go to a larger hospital.

Hiroko was 3 years old on Aug. 6, 1945, when the U.S. military dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

It fell at 8:15 a.m. She was near her home at that time, about 1.1 kilometers from ground zero.

Her hair fell out in the days following the blast, but it grew back and she seemed otherwise healthy.

However, Hiroko was diagnosed with leukemia and was hospitalized.

During her fifth-grade summer vacation, she was so sick that for several days at a time she was unable to get out of bed.

Relatives took turns nursing her as Hiroko fought to live.

However, on Oct. 1, 1952, she passed away. She was only 10.

NAGASAKI BOY LOVED SPORTS

Makoto Hisamatsu enjoyed sports and was a high-scoring student, popular among his classmates. He was the class leader in fourth grade.

Makoto attended an elementary school near ground zero in Nagasaki.

In September 1953, he fell ill and was hospitalized. He was diagnosed with leukemia.

He was in the garden at home when the atomic bomb detonated.

His mother immediately held him. This action may have protected him from worse injuries as he survived with only minor burns--but he was still exposed to radiation.

Makoto’s best friend came to visit him in the hospital. Makoto would always smile at his friend, but each time they met his smile became paler.

On Oct. 23, 1953, Makoto died at age 10. He had spent less than two months in the hospital.

TOKYO DOCUMENTARY

Makoto Chiba was living in Tokyo when he complained of poor health. It was August of his third year of high school.

He went to the hospital and was diagnosed with myeloid leukemia.

Makoto had been exposed to the attack on Hiroshima when he was an elementary school student. He lost his mother and younger brother in the bombing.

He then moved to Tokyo and entered a private high school in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

When his school’s student council learned of his illness, the students began raising money for his treatment.

To broaden the circle of support beyond the school and across the country, they also made a documentary film about his battle. His friends contributed to it with their tributes.

“Compared with those who were exposed (to the atomic blast), my condition is mild,” Makoto said. “I’m sure I’ll get better when the weather warms up.”

He said he looked forward to watching the movie once it was completed.

“Once I’ve recovered, I’ll work hard to repay all of you for everything you’ve done for me,” he said.

However, he died at the age of 18 on May 3, 1955, without seeing the completed film. He had been hospitalized for several months.

The student council continued to work on the documentary. The students filmed Makoto’s school funeral as the closing scene. It showed a portrait of him in his school uniform.

“We will not let your death be in vain,” the student council president said. “We are firmly opposed to the use of atomic and hydrogen bombs. They would lead to more victims like you, and to wars where people kill other people remorselessly, regardless of the circumstances.”

PAPER CRANES

After learning about what had been done for Makoto, students from a private high school in Nagoya sent paper cranes to children suffering from leukemia at what was then the Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital. They hoped the cranes would cheer up the patients.

One of the recipients was Sadako Sasaki, who showed the cranes to her father.

“Your illness will get better if you fold a thousand cranes,” Sadako’s father told her.

So Sadako set about folding cranes. She made more than a thousand in less than a month, but she died on Oct. 25, 1955, at age 12.

The story of Sadako and the cranes became widely known in Japan and around the world.

Her family plans to submit her origami cranes to UNESCO’s Memory of the World, an archival project to record history through documentary evidence.

They hope that the cranes will be registered in 2025, the 80^th anniversary of the atomic bombings.

“Innocent children were sacrificed in the war started by adults,” said Sadako’s brother, Masahiro, 82, who lives in Nakagawa in Fukuoka Prefecture.

“I hope that from time to time, people remember children like Sadako,” he said. “Until nuclear weapons are abolished from the world, I will never give up and will continue to tell her story.”

LEUKEMIA RISK

The Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital was among medical institutions that treated the survivors of the two atomic bombings.

In late 1948, the hospital began to see leukemia cases. They spiked between 1951 and 1953, according to the Radiation Effects Research Foundation.

The RERF has bases in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where it studies the health of atomic bomb survivors jointly with U.S. researchers.

An independent survey by the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, the RERF’s predecessor, reported an annual death rate from leukemia of 115 per 100,000 survivors between 1950 and 1954.

The study looked only at hibakusha who had been near ground zero and had received large doses of radiation. Although the sample size was small, this rate was almost 50 times higher than the nationwide leukemia death rate in 1955.

“Those who were exposed at a young age tend to have a higher risk,” said Noriaki Yoshida, chief of the clinical laboratories division at the RERF, who studies leukemia.

“In some types of leukemia, the high risk continued even 50 years later,” he said.

(This article was written by Rikuri Kuroda, Tetsuaki Otaki and Asako Hanafusa.)