Description
Dr. Vanner discusses the destructive impacts of the A-bomb on Hiroshima.
Dr. George Vanner
Dr. Vanner was born in Toronto, June 14, 1927. After completing his public schooling in Belleville and Trenton, he entered the University of Ottawa Medical school. He had been a member of his local militia, and when war broke out in Korea, he joined the regular force as an army Lieutenant. Upon graduation in the summer of 1942, Dr. Vanner was sent to South Korea. He was a field surgeon until a truce was declared. After that, Dr. Vanner spent some time in the hospitals around Hiroshima. Once in Canada, Dr. Vanner established a solo medical practice which allowed him to utilise the diverse skills he had acquired in Korea. He is now retired and has recently joined the Korean Veterans Association.
Transcript
Japan is an interesting country. And as I mentioned before, we were stationed at Couray only about 18 miles from Hiroshima. So in any spare time that I had, I had access to a jeep and a driver. And we would go regularly to Hiroshima to attend seminars in the hospital there, which was quite fascinating you see, because any strange illness that was in the area that occurred, they would bring to Hiroshima to decide whether this was the effect of radiation, or if this was some other naturally occurring disease. So it was really quite fascinating.
Well Hiroshima was a city about the size of Oshawa, in Canada here. And it contained several million people, at the time of the bombing. The bomb was quite horrific, as you're aware. There was 250 thousand dead, that within a matter of a very short time, you know and hundreds of critically injured people; burns, 3rd degree and 4th degree burns.
Whereas burns would leave, some burns would leave on skin even though it was reddened and blistered, these types of wounds, the skin was gone completely. So whole segments of the body had no covering whatsoever. There were just, just large weeping sores. Really, really quite horrible. And of course, the force of the bomb, anybody within about 1500 feet, were literally melted. They just vanished, you know. They have, in the, in the Peace Park there, they have a bridge and etched into the side of that bridge, is the picture of a, of a crouching man, who was evaporated and all that was left was his shadow, burned into the bridge.
And so it was a devastated city. The bomb flatted everything within a large radius, you know and just, just nothing survived in there at all, buildings were all gone. Of course they were light buildings and the main, the steel reinforcements as I say, were the still there, but just shells, just bare shells. No roof, no windows of course and the floors were all gone and just the walls standing or just some of the walls standing.
People, were actually reasonably friendly. I use that word advisably, because you know, we didn't see any signs of hostility, apparent hostility at all. And we could travel alone on the train. The trains were a 4, excellent. And the language was difficult because of course you can't read it. We all learned to speak a little, because Japanese is a, spoken Japanese is not all that difficult. But oddly enough, very few of the troops picked up Korean. I don't really know the reason for that, you know. The languages are not all that much different, but it was more popular to speak some Japanese. And the actually Pidgin in English, even in Korean was English and Japanese, not English and Korean. You know, you learn enough, you didn't become fluent, I don't mean to say, but you learned enough, so you could go into the market place and bargain for things. And that sort of thing, I mean you can always get something to eat and some place to sleep.