As explained, after the Hiroshima Medical School closed on March 31st, 1888, medical professionals and citizens continued to urge the establishment of medical training institutions. The requests grew more appealing as a potential solution to the shortage of physicians along with the Shino-Japanese War and the Pacific War. On January 12th, 1945, Hiroshima prefecture submitted a request for “the establishment of the Hiroshima Prefectural Medical School” and received permission on February 13th, with the aim of opening the school in April 22）.
In July 1945, mobilization of junior high school graduates was lifted only for those entering medical schools. Hiroshima Prefectural Medical School planned to hold its establishment ceremony on August 8th. However, Principal Michimoto Hayashi, who was concerned that the airstrikes were getting worse by the day, moved the date forward to August 5th, and on the same day, the school evacuated to Korinbo Temple in Takadagun Odamachi (present-day Aki Takada City, Koda-machi) to begin classes. In this way, most school staff and students escaped the calamity of the atomic bomb. However, the school building (the former site of the Hiroshima Prefecture Normal School in Minami-machi) and the affiliated hospital (located in Kako-machi, the former Hiroshima Prefectural Hospital) were destroyed by the bomb. Because of this, the Hiroshima Prefectural Medical School was transferred to the site of the former location of the Yasuura Naval Training Corps in Yasuura-cho, Kakogun (present-day Kure City) and resumed classes.
After the war, Japan underwent a baptism in various fields by GHQ, or General Headquarters, as the Allied occupying forces were known. Medical education was no exception, and it was decided that medical vocational schools and the like were to be abolished, leaving only universities. It was also decided that existing medical vocational schools were to be classified as either “A-grade,” which could be promoted to medical schools, or “B-grade,” which were to be closed. Hiroshima Prefectural Medical School, aiming for promotion, submitted “Request for Approval of Establishing Hiroshima Prefectural Medical School” on January 15th, 1947, seeking to establish a school in Yasuura-machi and an affiliate hospital in Kure City. However, the request was denied because it was against the operating principle that medical schools were to be integrated into urban areas. The school received a tentative B-grade.
Facing a crisis once again, Hiroshima Prefectural Medical School hoped to set up a facility in Kure City excluding the preparatory courses. Kure City accepted the offer, aiming at becoming a peaceful cultural city in the future after losing the Navy with the end of the war. Kure City donated the former Dormitory of Kure Naval Arsenal in Nikawa Park to be used as a school building, as well as Kure City Citizens’ Hospital, located to the west of Kure Station, as a main building for the affiliated hospital, and Kure City Hospital in Agamachihara as a branch of the hospital. Hiroshima Prefectural Medical School moved to the Dormitory of Kure Naval Arsenal on February, 15th, 1954. On April 1st, the temporary affiliated clinic was transferred to the former Kure City Hospital (Aga Branch). They hurried to renovate the old Kure City Citizens’ Hospital, which was designated for use as the headquarters. However, it was struck by a fire on April 5th, just before completion. Under these circumstances, the establishment of Hiroshima Prefectural Medical University was approved on June 18th, while strict conditions were placed imposing a re-examination to be conducted regarding the establishment of an undergraduate program.
Construction work of the Aga Branch progressed as it prepared for re-examination. Rooms for basic medicine classes and rooms for patients with infectious diseases, as well as an administrative office, were completed. On November 22, 1947, the Hiroshima Prefectural Medical School was relocated from the former dormitory in Ninokawa-machi, which was inappropriate for an educational institute, to Aga-machi. However, on December 19th,1947, rooms for the basic medicine course and some of the rooms for infected patients burned because of an electrical short. Again, the school faced a crisis threatening its existence. As before, but this time with the cooperation of Kure City and others, the Aga branch of the former Kure Naval Kyosai Hospital, which was occupied by the British Commonwealth Occupation Forces, and Hiroshima Kyosai Hospital, were transferred. Using the former building as the school and the latter as the affiliated hospital (headquarters), the establishment of Hiroshima Prefectural Medical University was officially approved.
Regarding nursing education, Hiroshima Nursing Training School, Hiroshima Prefectural Medical School (2-year) was established, taking on 10 students from Kure City Citizen Hospital Nursing Training School on April 1947. Then, on the same day that the Hiroshima Prefectural Medical University was established, the school was renamed Nurses and Midwives Training School. Along with the publication of the Act on Public Health Nurses, Midwives and Nurses, the school was changed into Women’s School of Public Health, Hiroshima Prefectural Medical University (3-year). After becoming a university under the new system, it was again renamed Nursing School, Hiroshima University School of Medicine.
Along with the transfer to Hiroshima University School of Medicine, a new problem occurred, namely, the relocation the faculty of medicine from Kure City to Hiroshima City. While the Ministry of Education and the Faculty of Medicine preferred relocation to Hiroshima City, Kure City felt strongly that the city had supported the development of the school since it relocated to Kure City. The city had accepted the school as a center of development, with the aim of replacement the Navy, and had overcome many crises over the course of the development process from Hiroshima Prefectural Medical School to Hiroshima University School of Medicine.
In the end, this problem was settled by relocating the National Sanatorium Hiroshima Hospital to Kure City and leaving an affiliated hospital in Hiro-machi as a branch. On September 30th, 1956, the National Sanatorium Hiroshima Hospital was closed and transferred its workers and patients to a facility of the former Kure Naval Hospital, which was returned from British Commonwealth Forces in Korea, establishing National Kure Hospital. On September 30th, 1957, Hiroshima University School of Medicine and affiliated hospital were removed to Kasumi-cho, Hiroshima City, moving the prefectural medical center from Kure City to Hiroshima City. In addition, triggered by this relocation, Hiroshima University Faculty of Medicine worked on medical treatment for A-bomb survivors harder than ever. In the following section, this report covers nursing education from the wartime period to the postwar period, as well as the relief efforts for A-bomb victims by nurses. Demand for nurses suddenly increased as the war advanced, leading to a revision of the Female Nurse Regulation on October 3rd, 1941, which lowered nurses’ minimum age from 18 to 17, and again lowered it to 16 on May 14th, 1944. Also, on October 2nd, the qualifications for the nurse examination were revised. They had previously been given to those who studied nursing academically for more than one year. The revision shortened the training year, hence, for those who had graduated from girls’ junior high school, only three months of nursing training were needed to qualify, and only six month for those who did not graduate from junior high school. At the same time, training periods at nursing school, which used to be more than two years, were also shortened to just over six months for girls’ junior high school graduates and shortened to one year for others 23）. Against this background, a substantial number of nurses were trained during the wartime regime, especially after 1944.
With regards to nursing education, take the Hiroshima Prefectural Hospital Nurse Training School in Kako-machi as example. (The school was later renamed the Hiroshima Prefectural Medical School Nursing Training School). The enrollment limit of this school was 20 students. The first and second grade students were called training students. After completing those two years, they were granted a nurse diploma. However, even after becoming a nurse, they were obliged to work as third and fourth grade students. In addition, like physicians, those nurses were severely restricted in their ability to evacuate due to the Air Defense Work Order. At this school, nurse training by the Japan Medical Treatment Corporation and a crash training course intended for nurse volunteers that trained nurses in six months were both implemented.
Most of the nurses and trainees who were in the hospital and those volunteers who took part in relief activities on August 6th were killed or missing. On the other hand, eight of the third and fourth graders who attended the health training held at the Chichiyasu Farm in Ohno-machi were unharmed and played an important role in rescue efforts at the Yoshida Rescue station. In all, a total of 46 nurses and trainees died or went missing out of a total of 76. In addition, all 40 volunteer nurse applicants who were undergoing an ophthalmology examination, and Ken Takahashi, a lecturer, were killed.
Nurses who participated in the Kenmin Shuren (Health Citizen Training: training designed for those who suffered from tuberculosis or those who required health improvement) returned to Hiroshima City on a truck belonging to the Akatsuki Corps (the popular name of the Army Marine Headquarters) and were engaged in rescue activities at Yoshida Rescue Station and other facilities. The stations were inundated with A-bomb survivors and “we ran out of medicine that was thought to be enough” and “holding a bottle of Mercurochrome, we applied it to wounds. At the end, we scooped out the rest, scraping out the bottle with a brush, and used it 24）.”
Finally, this report introduces the diaries of nurses and students of the Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital Nurse Training School who provided aid on August 6th 25）. 

 

…The injured came one after another, forming lines and walls. There, Chief Nurse Tanimoto in drenched mompe work pants came running up with disheveled hair: “Please help me. Students are buried.”
I started preparing myself with Nurse Watanabe. She wrapped a wound on her forehead with a Furoshiki wrapping cloth, making it a headband, and washed her face in a restroom. (Back then, water was still available from the tap.) I also tried to wash away blood but stopped when the pain became too much. (Later, a patient told me: “Your face, covered in black with only white eyes and teeth, looked quite frightful.”) Wearing mompe work pants and covering feet with leather shoes, everyone who could move ran to the dormitories…
Troops were pulling out students one after another from under the rubble, using a large pillar as a ladder. They were so reliable even though they were injured.
After telling some freshmen who just entered this spring to look after our recued colleagues, I rushed to another place. After a while, I returned to the place and found the dazed freshmen holding their colleagues, not knowing the wounded had passed away. We laid down the body gently and prayed for the victims. (Later, I heard that most of the students were rescued before they died. It must have required enormous efforts under the circumstances.) In the midst of all that, a group of citizens approached, seeing the Red Cross flags. All places, including the shelters and others, were filled up. They asked for aid and water.
I was asked by Chief Nurse Koga to get olive oil from the third floor. In front of the elevator it was so crowded that I could not pass through. Finally, I received the valuable oil. I poured a plenty of oil on the spilt cotton and put my hands on the cotton and then applied the oil on faces, backs, hands and feet at random, even when sand or glass fragments became mixed in the oil. We were unconcerned about cleanliness. The additional peanut oil provided by a pharmacy was not enough to cover all the patients. Needless to say, there were no gauze or bandages at all…

 

There were 408 nurse students at the time of atomic boming, of which 404 were rescued. In 1959, Chief Nurse Oshie Taniguchi (later Kinuya) was awarded the 17th Florence Nightingale Medal.

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22) For information about the history of Hiroshima University Faculty of Medicine, refer to the Alumni Association of Department of Medicine at Hiroshima University (Kojinkai) Ed., Hiorshima Daigaku Igakubu Goju Nenshi Tushihen (50-Year History of the Hiroshima University Faculty of Medicine: Overview)
23) Medical Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Health and Welfare (Ed.),Isei Hyakunenshi Kijutsuhen(A 100-Year History of the Medical System: On Description), Gyosei,1976:pp.307-308
24) Fujiko Kawai (1996), Kakomachi Kanyu Hyakusanbanchi ga Kietahi,(The Day when the Government-owned Land 103 Disappeared), Kazokusha: p.123. The information about Hiroshima Prefectural Hospital Nurse Training School was sourced from this book.
25) Fumiko Kubo (1981), “Hibaku no Rikugun Byoin Sekijuji Byoin ni Kinmushite”, (Working at the A-Bombed Army Hospital and the Red Cross Hospital), in Japan Red Cross Association of Nursing, Hiroshima Branch, Hiroshima Sekijujisha Hiroshimaken Shibu Senji Kyugo Hanshi: Chinkon no Fu, (History of the Relief Team of Japan Red Cross Hiroshima Prefecture Branch: Score of Requiem), 1981:pp.140-14

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