Template:Did you know nominations/Hiroshima Maidens
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Hiroshima Maidens
- ... that during the 1950s, a group of 25 women disfigured by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima traveled to the United States to receive reconstructive surgery?
- Source: Taken from the lead, so basically summarizes the whole article, but a few specific excerpts that support it:
In 1951, Tanimoto began working with the editor of The Saturday Review of Literature, Norman Cousins, to promote the women's cause, convincing him that the best course of action for the women was to take them to the United States to receive surgery there. It was Cousins who first used the English name "Hiroshima Maidens" for the women.
- "Tanimoto persuaded Cousins that the best possible medical care for the Maidens was in the United States and that he should move heaven and earth to help them as quickly as possible. Cousins was moved by the plight of these young women, whom he affectionately dubbed the 'Hiroshima Maidens,' an awkward English translation of the Japanese name with which they had christened themselves—the 'Unmarried Young Ladies of Hiroshima.' In 1953 Cousins approached Dr. William Hitzig, his personal physician at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, and asked him to assemble a team of plastic surgeons who could perform the necessary major and minor operations." (Serlin, p. 63-64)
...it was determined that 25 met the surgery criteria.
- "Hitzig and his colleagues flew to Hiroshima and selected twenty-five young women they believed could benefit most from the reconstructive surgery. " (Serlin, p. 64)
Finally, they arrived in New York on 9 May 1955.
- "After resting for several hours they flew on to New York, landing at Mitchell Air Force Base on Long Island early on the morning of May 9, 1955, to a raucous reception." (Barker, p. 87)
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