They were the very first who responded to the call for help when the Fukushima nuclear power plant got hit by a massive tsunami on March 2011. But never did the sailors aboard USS Ronald Reagan thought that they too would become victims of the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

An alarming number of US Navy sailors have now started coming out to publicly air their grievances against what happened to their health as they conducted their jobs while in Japan waters three years ago.

Close to 100 U.S. sailors with ailments such as thyroid cancer, brain tumors and leukemia have filed a lawsuit against the Tokyo Electric Power Company. But its progress has been stalled because many more sailors want to join into the lawsuit, according to Bay area lawyer Charles Bonner.

Mr Bonner said they would need to wait until early February to refile the lawsuit accommodate a constant influx of sailors from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and other American ships.

Petitions supporting the sailors have likewise started circulating online on a global scale at nukefree.org, MoveOn, Avaaz and Roots Action, among others.

The suit alleged TEPCO, operator of the crippled Fukushima, purposely withheld information of the release of the radioactive plume. Sailors could have stood a chance and the Ronald Reagan could have escaped the deadly cloud had TEPCO warned the upper authorities.

Sailor Lindsay Cooper claimed she now has a damaged thyroid, disrupted menstrual cycle, wildly fluctuating body weight and more. "It's ruined me," she said.

Steve Simmons, a U.S. Naval Officer from Maryland, claimed he has lost the use of both his legs. He told WUSA9 that he has experienced fevers as well as swelling in his lymph nodes because he got exposed to radioactivity near the Fukushima.

The symptoms started eight months after he has returned to the U.S. from Japan.

"You're starting to run fevers, your lymph nodes start swelling, you're having night sweats, you're getting spastic and you're losing sensation in your legs, and you can't feel your legs when you're getting second-degree burns on them, and how do you explain those things?" Mr Simmons said.

The sailors claimed that on their first day at Fukushima, they got drenched in radioactive fallout. They noticed a cloud of warm air with a metallic taste poured over the Reagan.

They thought it was a snow storm. Responding U.S. Navy sailors disregarded it and continued working and helping and rescuing. Some worked 18-hour shifts in the open air throughout a four-day mission, re-fueling and repairing helicopters, loading them with vital supplies and much more. Some even jumped into the ocean just offshore to pull victims to safety.

Worse, all drank and bathed in waters that although had been desalinated, were surely greatly contaminated by radioactive fallout and runoff.

When the warm cloud occurred, they even joked it's a "radioactive snow" which ironically proved to be true. When the USS Ronald Reagan had left the Fukushima area, it was found to be so radioactive that ports in Japan, South Korea and Guam rejected its entry. It's currently docked in San Diego.