The X-ray that kept Kiyotaka Furuno out of the second world war made him a rich man – though its effect on the world’s fish stocks was less salutary.
Mr Furuno, now 88, was in his late teens and eking out a living repairing radios on the Shimabara peninsula, a poor fishing community south of Nagasaki, when the Imperial army drafted him. After leaving school at 17 he had taught himself radio repair from a book to support his family, his father’s teaching salary having been cut as part of the austerity campaign to pay for the war.
