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Hiroshima Survivor Kiyoshi Kikkawa Earliest Signature I Have Seen 1951 Still in Red Cross Hospital

Hi All,

Many of you know I collect artifacts, bits...of buildings, melted roof tiles, melted windows with wood in them, fused ceramic and metal, blasted electrical bits with aggregate...things from the Hiroshima Atomic Bombing. That blast stuff is very hard to authenticate. I also collect Survivor autographs - the closer to 1945 the better. Of the many signatures I have, even from this one man, and the many I have examined, this is the earliest yet by a full year. It's a man whose material I collect seriously.

Kiyoshi Kikkawa opened a "souvenir shop" near the Dome in mid-late 1951 and spoke and traveled and was a great proponent of peace. He helped to preserve the Dome. Shown below is him in the Red Cross hospital in 1946 or '47, the earliest signature I have seen, him after this still in the Red Cross Hospital (he left in April 1951 citing poor food and treatment), him signing his autobiography in his "Atomic Shop" near the Genbaku Dome 1953, the autobiography, signed and stamped, a rare snapshot from June,1952 showing him being photographed by solders - he had a badly flash-burned back with keloid formations I won't show here, and he would expose it ceremoniously for anyone who asked, and - a rare color slide of his shop in about 1954. Click to see entire image.

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Permalink Reply by Scott Paul on November 30, 2017 at 7:09am

That is very interesting. I think you are wise to still use the lead case. I suppose the number of survivors are dwindling down even though there would be those who were children. I know the Enola Gay pilot and crew signed for years.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on November 30, 2017 at 11:01am

Hi Scott, still living are approx 130,000 Hibakusha from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. About 11,000 Japanese Americans were in Hiroshima on Aug. 6th, with approx 3,000 returning to the US. The double survivors, nijū hibakusha, had the very bad luck of being in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Incredibly, this happened to some 150 people or so. I recall an American POW who survived Nagasaki because he was in a jail cell with thick concrete walls. I also recall an (American? English?) actress.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on August 12, 2018 at 11:10am

Hi Scott,

I don't know why I never posted thses images - the measurements on a spectrometer. As a friend interpreted this for me - "The 87 KeV Gamma line is associated with Europium, which is most likely the result of neutron radiation from the bomb blast."

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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on August 12, 2018 at 11:31am

PS - Scott, the melted glass fragment Europium readings are for the fragment shown earlier. I thought this would post beneath that backlit image.

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Permalink Reply by Scott Paul on August 12, 2018 at 12:31pm

That is very interesting you wonder how much of these artifacts were removed from the site in the months and years following.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on August 12, 2018 at 12:35pm

That is a good question. I think this will become clearer in the next few years as the last generation of people who collected this material pass on and the items get sold etc into the marketplace. Most of what I see are roof tiles - anything unbroken or unusual is very desirable - prices have risen a lot in just the last 4 years.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on December 10, 2017 at 11:09pm

It occurred to me, the greenish color on one of my home electrical wire knobs likely indicates the presence of then melted copper wires? Make sense? These were exposed to the elements for perhaps 5-6 years. The wire knob to the left has a sheet rock nail fused to it so sufficient heat was certainly present.