How The Yomiuri Shimbun Got The "Lucky Dragon No. 5" Scoop

Above, the forward deck of the Lucky Dragon No. 5. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

The 60th anniversary of the Lucky Dragon No. 5 incident will be marked next month. Japan is planning a commemoration ceremony in Tokyo.

The Yomiuri Shimbun's The Japan News posted an article on how the story on the irradiation of the tuna fishing trawler was broken.

They wrote:

Sixty years ago, Mitsuyasu Abe, a second-year staff writer at The Yomiuri Shimbun's Yaizu Regional Reporter’s Office, was the first to report on the exposure of the Fukuryu Maru No. 5 to radiation from the hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll. But Abe had to thank his landlady for the tip that led to the world-shaking scoop. 

Abe, who died in 2000 at the age of 70, was at a police station in Shimada, Shizuoka Prefecture, on March 15, 1954, to gather information on the murder of a girl, when his landlady, Misa Kobayashi, called him to say that a tuna fishing boat seemed to have been irradiated in a nuclear test. 

Abe turned to other reporters and said with surprise in his voice, “My father has come from my hometown.” He used this tactic to leave the police station by himself.

To read the full story, go here.