On September 2, 1945, Japan officially surrendered to the allied nations in a ceremony held on the battleship Missouri, in Yokohama Bay. A sense of lassitude seemed to grip the nation. At the time, I was a third year science student at Kyoto University.
After the surrender, I left the Kansai branch of the Imperial Army Research Center and returned to the Arakatsu Bunsaku Laboratory, at Kyoto University, to finish writing my thesis. However, my studies were soon interrupted when the University's cyclotron (a particle accelerator) was destroyed in accordance with U.S. Postwar policy of destroying all nuclear physics experimental equipment.

Without the cyclotron I was unable to do the experiments necessary to continue my research. This led me to consider the idea of building a research center of my own. It was a case of doing it yourself if you wanted to get the job done.....

On October 17, 1945, the HORIBA Radio Laboratory was opened in a private house approximately 50 meters from Karasuma-gojo. I imagine this was probably one of the first venture businesses to be started in Japan by a student. At this time that the word electronics was not yet common English usage: rather, the term "Radio" was used as a general descriptive term for low-tension electricity technologies. The term "Laboratory" conjures the image of a large, state-of-the-art structure. However, the two-story wooden building with a floor space of 80 square meters that housed the laboratory was a far cry from this. It was there that I completed my thesis, enabling me to graduate from university.

Before long, I began receiving requests from Kyoto University and other sources for electronics-related work and making and repairing measuring equipment, and was able to save some of the money I earned. The first product that I made at the research center was a storage battery to be used in the event of a power failure. The battery was capable of powering a three-to-four-watt electric bulb, thus saving people the trouble of having to look for candles in the dark. It was a hit product. While I was pleased with the success of the storage battery, I had really had established the wireless research center with the dream of developing products that were far more technologically advanced.

Not long afterwards, the opportunity I was looking for presented itself when I was making a medical pulse transmitter. I realized that the quality of the available capacitors--devices that are indispensable in the field of electronics--and in particular the quality of electrolytic capacitors, was quite poor. After conducting a number of experiments, the team at the research center developed an electrolytic capacitor that boasted better control qualities than other products available at the time. Moreover, the new product offered a consistent performance, regardless of the skills of the user.

We discovered during trial manufacturing of the new capacitor that the most important aspect of the process was ensuring the pH consistency of the solution used for making oxide film. However, there was no measuring device available that could accurately measure pH levels. The market for pH meters was dominated by American products, which were not only very expensive but also unsuited to the humid Japanese climate. The focus of our research turned to developing a reliable, precise pH meter. Finally, with the guidance of professor Nishitomo Futoshi, from the industrial science department at Kyoto University, and professor Hisato Yoshimura, from Kyoto Medical University, we developed a precision pH meter and a conductivity meter.

We named the new electrolytic capacitor the "Alligator," and turned our attention to its commercial manufacture. I somehow managed to find sponsors willing to loan us the money we needed, and factory construction plans were completed. However, just as construction was scheduled to commence, the unthinkable happened. Trouble occurred across the channel in Korea, resulting in the outbreak of the Korean conflict in June 1950.