As World War Two in the European Theater came to a close, the Americans were working towards a solution to end the War in the Pacific. United States President Truman came to the conclusion that in order to end the war as quickly as possible, and to spare as many lives as possible, that atomic weapons were necessary. In early August 1945, the United States executed the world’s first nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the resulting aftermath, thousands of Japanese civilians were left to deal with traumatic mental and physical consequences. These people became known as hibakusha, or “explosion-affected people.” Soon, the world would focus on a select few of these people, as they made a journey from Japan to America in order to receive plastic surgery – and while these Japanese victims were arriving in the United States, many American veterans were returning home with similar physical ailments.
While many Japanese surgeons attempted to help the hibakusha victims with their physical deformities, most of these surgeons had little success because of the lack of availability of Western medical technology and procedures. Out of the thousands of Japanese civilians needing medical assistance, 25 women were selected by Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto to travel to the United States in order to undergo plastic surgery.
In Reconstructing the Hiroshima Maidens, David Serlin argues that the American effort to help these women was not purely a humanitarian effort. In fact, the effort to help the women was used by the United States government in an attempt to downplay the role of the atomic bombs by portraying the women simply as victims of war [1]. Serlin parallels the reconstruction of the Hiroshima Maidens with the reconstruction of the city of Hiroshima as both being under the influence of Western ideals.
While the Hiroshima Maidens were being flown to America, there were thousands of men returning from Europe who faced similar physical scarring and disabilities. In James McAleer’s article about prosthetic limbs for soldiers returning from war, it was highlighted that the government was not concerned with the veterans receiving the best possible treatments for their amputations. These soldiers were often outfitted with temporary prosthesis until more permanent ones were created. However, “in many cases he got a ‘prescription’ for a prosthesis supplied through a contract with the lowest bidder” [2] – which certainly leads one to assume that the quality and craftsmanship of the veteran’s permanent prosthetic limb may very well be just as uncomfortable as the temporary one.
The similarities between the two cases are interesting because of how the masses, both American and Japanese, were treated rather poorly on the whole. The few Japanese women selected were seen by the American government as nothing more than an opportunity to distract the public from the horrors of atomic warfare. However, Serlin’s argument appeared to become convoluted when comparing and contrasting the Hiroshima Maidens with the city of Hiroshima. While the article does a fantastic job at highlighting how both were attempts at Western rehabilitation and reconstruction, the two examples did not seem to mesh very well together.
Furthermore, both Serlin and McAleer acknowledge how difficult it can be for someone to live with a physical disability in the way that the Japanese women and American veterans did. In fact, Serlin even noted in his research that there are sociological and psychological repercussions when World War II veterans had to deal with amputations [1]. I believe that both authors would argue that plastic surgery and prosthesis are forms of humanitarianism for these victims of war. Yet, as with all humanitarian causes, society often feels content by seeing only a select few being helped – as is normally published in the media, and as was published in regards to the Hiroshima Maidens. However, we often fail to realize that for those few we have helped, there are thousands of others who need humanitarian assistance just as desperately.
Sources:
[1] David Serlin, “Reconstructing the Hiroshima Maidens,” Replaceable you: engineering the body in postwar America (2004).
You bring up a strong connection between the Hiroshima Maidens and the American WWII veterans. Aid was not always provided to the thousands who needed it, just the few who could be helped while also providing America a positive PR image. In class we brought up the question whether anything really is done selflessly or if it is done out of a sense of duty or even to make the doer feel good. A question like that really makes you think.