BY JILLIAN TIMKO
Oshima Island, Japan
Four piles: wood, debris, fishing equipment, and personal effects. For three days in March 2011, Marines from the U.S.S. Essex cleared and sorted the destruction caused by the Tohuku Earthquake on Oshima Island into these four categories.
Most U.S. Marines stationed in Asia in 2011 were not counting on humanitarian aid and disaster relief becoming a key focus of their service. But within hours of the Tohuku earthquake, Marines and other military personnel all over the Pacific paused their activities to travel to Japan to deliver a large humanitarian relief effort under Operation Tomodachi. The experience was a sobering one, as the Marines faced widespread destruction and risk of radiation exposure.
The Tohuku Earthquake on March 11, 2011 off the Pacific coast of Japan reached 9.0-9.1 on the Richter scale. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, it was the fourth largest earthquake in recorded history. It caused a deadly tsunami as well as a major nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. As of September 2017, the Japan National Police Agency recorded nearly 20,000 fatalities from the earthquake, the majority people who drowned during the tsunami.
According to reporting done by The Japan Times, Operation Tomodachi involved approximately 24,000 U.S. service members, 189 aircraft, and 24 naval ships. As a part of this operation, the U.S.S. Essex set out immediately for Japan on March 11, after having just arrived in Malaysia earlier that same day.
The ship arrived at Oshima Island on April 1, after three weeks transiting up the western coast of Japan to avoid radiation exposure and deliver aid supplies inland. Oshima is a small island under the jurisdiction of the mainland city of Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, about 100 miles north of the Fukushima nuclear meltdown. The island is known locally for its fishing industry and the beautiful scenery created by Mt. Kameyama and the surrounding blue-green coastline.
Oshima residents usually relied on ferry service and a single bridge from the mainland for supplies and transportation, but the tsunami had destroyed all the ferries, the docks, and the bridge, isolating the island completely. Residents had no electricity and were rationing fresh water and food provided by helicopter drops. A raised seabed and fire from a burning oil slick in Kesennuma Bay prevented major rescue efforts of island residents. Oshima Island was located on the edge of the “warm zone,” the 125-mile radius zone of potential radiation surrounding the Fukushima plant. Upon arrival, an infantry company from the U.S.S. Essex went to shore, and after a day of work radioed back, “We need more people.”
1st Lt. Karl Hendler volunteered to lead an additional ad-hoc mixed platoon of 42 marines, landing on the island on April 3. The platoon was tasked with clearing a pier in Kamagata Port on the southern end of the island so residents could begin to use their fishing boats and the ferries again. The tsunami had caused an immense amount of destruction on the island. Two ferries anchored on either side of a dock in the main port had been pushed hundreds of yards inland, still attached to the dock. Homes had been splintered and gutted by the waves, and the coastline was littered with overturned cars and beached fishing boats. “When we got there, I realized the pictures didn’t do it justice,” said Lt. Hendler in an interview for a book about the disaster, titled Strong in the Rain.
It was cold and snowing when Lt. Hendler’s platoon arrived. The Japanese Self-Defense forces, also present on the island, sent a liaison to coordinate with Lt. Hendler. The two did not speak each other’s language, but Lt. Hendler eventually figured out that the liaison wanted him to separate the personal items—photo albums, pictures, books, or anything from a house that looked like it could have sentimental value—from the rest of the debris. This led Lt. Hendler to create the four piles: wood for reconstruction, fishing equipment for the fishermen, other debris for disposal, and personal effects, whose final destination was unclear. Every so often a dump truck would drive up and pick up either the wood, the debris, or the personal effects, leaving the fishing equipment behind for the fishermen to salvage as best they could.
“Seeing the photo albums was tough,” said Lt. Hendler in a recent interview in New York, where he is now a graduate student. “And also the shoes, a lot of kids’ shoes.”
Before the Tohuku Earthquake, Oshima Island had about 3,000-4,000 residents. According to Lt. Hendler, almost everyone on the southern part of the island, which has the most direct exposure to the ocean, had died in the tsunami. The few locals who remained helped the Marines clear debris from the pier.
For three snowy days the Marines cleared and sorted debris, hiking up Mt. Kemayama at night to sleep in a park left mostly untouched by the tsunami. The pier was cleared ahead of schedule. All the while, the Marines took constant precautions against radiation poisoning. They could not put any of their gear directly on the ground, but instead had to lay it out on tarps. When they returned to the U.S.S. Essex, they had to go through the “long and tedious” process of radiation screening. All of their gear had been exposed, and the Marines who had been on the island continued to give off radiation after returning to the ship. Lt. Hendler described how the room he shared on the ship with three other Marines who had not participated in the Oshima response tested positive for radiation after he returned. Fortunately, the radiation levels found in all of these screenings were below the standard safety limits. After returning to base in Okinawa, the Marines were screened again and had to take iodine pills to combat their exposure.
The US refused to send the military within the zones most affected by radiation, garnering some criticism from their Japanese counterparts. Even so, several service men and women were exposed. Currently, there is an ongoing lawsuit led service members and their families that were exposed to radiation while performing humanitarian response from the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan before the full extent of the nuclear meltdown was determined.
Lt. Hendler remembers these three days as an extremely humbling and somber experience. “It was a very difficult situation, but we felt alright about our particular task: clear the pier. As soon as the people could get back to fishing, the sooner things could begin to go back to normal for them.”