USS SARATOGA

USS ARKANSAS

USS ANDERSON

The end of the Pacific War, and hence World War II, was brought about by the surrender of Japan following the dropping of atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These were, respectively, the second and third nuclear detonations on the surface of the planet.

The first bomb was detonated at Alamagordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945, at 5:30 a.m.

The second bomb was detonated over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m.

The third bomb was detonated over Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, at 10:58 a.m.

The fourth and fifth bombs were detonated during the atomic tests at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

The first large-scale atomic weapons effects tests conducted by the United States, the "Able" test detonation of July 1, 1946, at 9:00 a.m. local time at Bikini, and the "Baker" test detonation of July 25, 1946, at approximately 8:35 a.m. local time, were the first two of the three-part "Operation Crossroads" tests. (The third detonation, the "Charlie" test, was cancelled.) Formulated at the war's end and approved by President Harry S Truman on January 10, 1946, Operation Crossroads was not only the first of more than 850 publicly announced atomic weapons tests. It was a major demonstration of the power of the bomb and of the nation that had produced and used it, the United States. The name was selected because the atomic bomb represented a "crossroads"--from conventional to nuclear war.
The tests involved assembling a fleet of 242 ships, 42,000 men, 156 airplanes, and tens of thousands of tons of equipment, ordnance, and material at Bikini, as well as relocating the 162 residents of the atoll—
These weapons were nearly identical to the Mk III "Fat Man" bomb dropped on Nagasaki. These weapons reportedly yielded a 23-kiloton effect, equal to 23,000 tons of TNT. ("Official" yield credited at the time was 20 kilotons.) The bombs "contained a proximity-fuse system of extremely great reliability, sensitivity, and absolute accuracy.
Initially three tests were planned in order to assess the effects of pressure, impulse, shock-wave velocity, optical radiation, and nuclear radiation particular to the bomb. The air burst was reportedly to duplicate the conditions of the drop on Hiroshima, this time over water. The second shallow underwater blast was to simulate an attack on a fleet at anchor. The third test (cancelled) was to take place in the lee of Oruk Island, off the atoll, in 1,000 to 2,000 feet of water, with a small number of vessels moored above the blast solely to test the underwater effect of the bomb.

Hiroshima Blast Aug 6 1945

Devistation after the detonation.

PREPARING FOR THE TESTS

Preparations for the tests involved surveys of structural and watertight integrity, installation of test equipment, stripping of armament and other items not required as test equipment. The target ships were then loaded "with specified amounts of ammunition, fuel oil, gasoline, water. Ships were loaded as closely as possible to the battle or operating displacement of the ships. Varying percentages of the wartime allowance of ammunition and of the normal capacity of fuel oil and gasoline were
carried in the ships' magazines and bunker tanks. All gasoline drums, airplanes loaded with gasoline, and similar items were placed in pans. In some cases emergency repairs were made to battle damaged ships for the tests.

Factors involved in selecting the ships ranged from specific types and methods of construction to specific materials. In its enabling directive, Joint Task Force One was instructed to include not only captured enemy vessels in the target array but to also test vessels "representative of modern U.S. naval and merchant types” However, it was not feasible to include vessels of all U.S. naval types--especially the most modern types. A range of vessels were selected to include welded and riveted construction and the evolution of ship compartmentalization;

Five battleships were selected, one being the Japanese Nagato, which was presumably included solely to sink it. The U.S. battleships, all of a type made obsolete by the newer classes, were included because "although not of most modern design possessed great resistance to battle damage" because of heavy hulls, torpedo-protection systems of multiple longitudinal bulkheads, heavy armor, double or triple bottoms, and some 600 watertight compartments.

Four cruisers--two U.S., one German (Prinz Eugen), and one Japanese (Sakawa)—were included. The American-built ships were "excellent examples of prewar riveted construction, with structure somewhat heavier than any cruisers up to the latest 8-in. cruisers built during the war." Sakawa and Prinz Eugen were selected because "they represented the latest in cruiser design of Germany and Japan." Sakawa was intended to sink, as was Nagato; both vessels were moored within a 1,000-yard perimeter of the designated zero point for both tests, while Prinz Eugen was moored outside of the immediate blast area. Saratoga and Independence, the two carriers, were selected to include an old, pre-war carrier and a modern, but less than satisfactory light carrier. (The Independence class, a wartime necessity, were light, hastily constructed ships.) Saratoga's selection was justified as follows:

The 12 target destroyers selected represented three immediate prewar types--the Mahan, Gridley, and Sims classes. The attack transports were "typical of modern merchant-ship practice, with good transverse subdivision.... These vessels were designed and built during the war and were essentially of all-welded construction, with very few riveted joints." Target landing craft were included "more for the purpose of determining the effects of wave action than for determining direct effects of pressure on the hulls."
Three reinforced concrete vessels were used--ARDC-13, YO-160, and YOG-83. These three vessels were selected for dispersal within the target array from a group of craft scheduled for disposal to satisfy the Navy's Bureau of Yards and Docks' interest "in the damage to reinforced concrete structures at Hiroshima and Nagasaki....The lack of suitable land areas at Bikini made construction of similar installations impractical, even if there had been time."
The eight target submarines were "selected from those scheduled for the reserve fleets or for disposal by scrapping. They represented the two major types [the Gato and Balao classes], light and heavy hull construction, built in recent years by [among others] the three submarine building yards of the Electric Boat Company and the naval shipyards at Portsmouth and Mare Island." Some vessels were individually selected because of age, previous battle damage, and, occasionally, to replace ships selected but not available.
LCT-705 and LCT-1013 were placed in the Able target array to serve as "catchers to collect samples of any fission products which might fall out of the atomic cloud." The selection of 35 "major" vessels--from the battleships and carriers to the submarines--was publicly announced on January 24, 1946, at the first Crossroads press conference in Washington.

One of the "Fatman" bombs

Japanese cruiser - Sakawa

German Cruiser - Prinz Eugen

THE ABLE TEST

The target arrays were selected "to provide the best instrumentation possible, rather than be placed in a tactical formation. This policy was approved for both tests." The vessels were closely grouped together near the center of the array "because of the...decrease of pressure with increase in distance from the zeropoint."

The test array for the Able test included 24 vessels within the 1,000-yard radius of Nevada, the designated zeropoint, while 21 vessels were placed within the 1,000-yard radius of the point of detonation for the Baker test.

Additionally, the Joint Chiefs of Staff required the target arrays to graduate the level of damage; "this involved dispersing the target fleet so that individual ships of each major type would be placed in positions ranging from close...for major damage...to appreciable distances...for light damage." Since sufficient numbers of each type of vessel were not available, the best layout, geometric lines, bow and stern on, and broadside to the blast, was adhered to only for those ships that were present in large quantities--landing craft, destroyers, and attack transports.
These ships were berthed at regular intervals along a single, curved (to keep one ship from partially shielding another) line extending radially from the designated zeropoint, which was 5,400 yards off the beach of Bikini Island. The battleship Nevada was selected as the zeropoint "target" for Able because it was "the most rugged ship available."

The target arrays were different for each test. The Able target array consisted of 78 vessels; the Baker array consisted of 75. After the several vessels sank in the Able test, some of the ships in the "fringes" of the test area were shifted closer to the zeropoint to replace the lost vessels. Additionally, other vessels were placed farther out in the Able array to spare them from major damage since they were to be the primary targets in the Baker test; among these ships was the carrier Saratoga.

 The Able test bomb, nicknamed "Gilda" for the recent Rita Hayworth motion picture of that name, and stencilled with the likeness of Miss Hayworth, was dropped from the B-29, "Dave's Dream," on the morning of July 1, 1946. The bomb missed the designated zeropoint, Nevada, probably because of, according to some experts, poor aerodynamics caused by its high-drag tail fin structure, detonating instead 2,130 feet from the target and 518 feet directly above and 50 yards off the bow of the attack transport Gilliam.

The Able burst sank five vessels: the attack transports Gilliam and Carlisle, closest to the detonation, sank almost immediately. Two nearby destroyers, Anderson and Lamson, were also severely damaged and sank within hours, followed by the Japanese light cruiser Sakawa, which sank on July 2.
Other vessels were severely damaged, the most dramatic damage occurring to the light carrier Independence and the submarine Skate, both of which were for all intenive purposes wrecked. Six ships were immobilized, and 23 small fires were started on various ships.
The badly damaged ships were all within a 1000-yard radius of the zeropoint along with Hughes (DD-410), which was among the more damaged destroyers and later required beaching to avoid its sinking, the battleships Arkansas and Nagato, ARDC-13, and YO-160, all badly burnt and battered. The fears of the physicists opposed to the tests--that contrary to expectations the results would be less than cataclysmic, thus creating a false sense of security--were realized. The New York Times' account of Able noted that while the bomb had exploded with a flash "ten times brighter than the sun" over the target ships, "only two were sunk, one was capsized, and eighteen were damaged." The foreign observers were unimpressed, reported the press; the Russian observers shrugged their shoulders and the Brazilian observer said he felt "so so" about the blast. Of the 114 press representatives at Bikini, only 75 stayed for the Baker test.
Following the Able detonation, Navy teams moved in to fight fires, reboard the ships, and tow sinking vessels to Enyu for beaching. As this work progressed, diving commenced on the sunken ships for "a full assessment of the damage done by the air blast." The first dives were made on July 7, when Gilliam was dived on, followed by Carlisle, Anderson, and Lamson. Inspection of the ships, recovery of test gauges (particularly from Gilliam, which was the highest priority for instrumentation recovery because the ship was the accidental zeropoint for the blast), and underwater photography continued until July 14, when attention turned to the preparations for the Baker test. Expectations for greater damage during the Baker test were high; Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, touring the target ships after Able, when asked why the first detonation had not sunk the entire fleet, remarked that "heavily built and heavily armored ships are difficult to sink unless they sustain underwater damage." News reports and military and public interest focused on blast effect. The effect of radiation was for the most part ignored; a short news item filed by the Associated Press on July 15 noted that the test animals were "dying like flies.... Animals that appear healthy and have a normal blood count one day, 'drop off the next day,' an officer said...."  This scarcely noted account was a harbinger of the future.

Able bomb detonated 150m above sea-level

Note the red number 32 - which was the Nevada which was meant to be the hit zone. But pilots overshot the dropzone by 650 meters!

THE BAKER TEST

The Baker test bomb, nicknamed "Helen of Bikini," was placed in a steel caisson manufactured by Los Alamos from the conning tower of USS Salmon (SS-182) which had been scrapped in April 1946. With "Made in New Mexico" chalked on its side by Carl Hatch, U.S. Senator from New Mexico and an observer at the tests, the caisson was suspended 90 feet below the well in the steel landing ship LSM-60.  The bomb was detonated on the morning of July 25, 1946.

The blast displaced 2.2 million cubic yards and created a 25-foot deep crater with a maximum diameter of 1,100 yards and a minimum diameter of 600 yards; the segment of the crater deeper than 20 feet covered an area 250 to 700 yards in diameter. It was estimated that about 500,000 cubic yards of material fell back into the crater, with the remainder dispersed throughout the lagoon. "A layer of sand and mud several feet thick was deposited on the bottom..." and a diver working on the port side of Arkansas after the blast reportedly sank into soft, pulverized coral and mud up to his armpits. The Baker blast--or the two million tons of displaced water from the cloud that fell back into the lagoon--sank an additional nine vessels, some almost immediately. LSM-60 was destroyed; except for a few fragments of the ship that fell on other vessels, no trace of the landing ship was ever found.

The bomb's detonation point was within 500 yards of the location of the sunken Lamson and Sakawa. The failure to locate these vessels during subsequent dive surveys of the lagoon indicates the bomb, moored at a depth of 90 feet in a 180-foot deep lagoon, probably did considerable damage, or possibly completely destroyed them, depending on each wreck's exact location.

Arkansas, the submarines Apogon, Pilotfish, and Skipjack, and the auxiliaries YO-160 and ARDC-13 sank almost immediately. The badly damaged carrier Saratoga, listing but too radioactive to be boarded by salvage teams, sank within hours, followed by the Japanese battleship Nagato, and LCT-1114. Within the next few days, five other landing craft that were damaged in the Baker test were scuttled in Bikini lagoon; another was taken outside of the atoll and sunk. The destroyer Hughes and the attack transport Fallon, badly damaged and sinking, were taken in tow and beached. The detonation effect of Baker was greater than Able; reports and interest were rekindled, although total destruction by the bomb had once more been
averted. One reporter, William L. Laurence, the "dean" of atomic reporters who had witnessed the detonation of the Trinity test bomb, the Nagasaki bomb drop, and the two Bikini blasts, described a new public attitude as a result of Operation Crossroads. Returning to the United States, Laurence found that while "before Bikini the world stood in awe of this new cosmic force...since Bikini this feeling...has largely evaporated and has been supplanted by a sense of relief unrelated to the grim reality of the situation." Laurence felt this was because of the desire of the average citizen "to grasp the flimsiest means that would enable him to regain his peace of mind. He had expected one bomb to sink the entire Bikini fleet, kill all the animals...make a hole in the bottom of the ocean and create tidal waves. He had even been told that everyone participating in the test would die. Since none of these happened, he is only too eager to conclude that the atomic bomb is, after all, just another weapon." Laurence himself, as well as nearly everyone else involved in the tests, failed to realize or report the insidious effect of the bomb. Far deadlier than the actual blast, in that time of "limited yield" nuclear weapons, was the lasting effect of radiation, confirming once again the fears and prophecies of the nuclear scientists that even seemingly "undamaged" vessels could and would suffer from radioactive contamination. Decontamination by scrubbing the ships "clean" was only partially successful. The effort to decontaminate the target battleship New York was a case in point:

The main deck forward had not been touched as yet....I made a careful survey of the deck, finding the intensity to vary a great deal in a matter of feet. One gets the impression that fission products have become most fixed in the tarry caulking of the planking and in rusty spots in the metal plates. When the survey was complete the Chief turned his booted, sweating, profane and laughing crew loose with brushes, water, and a barrel of lye. Yet when the hydraulics were done and the deck rinsed clean again, another survey showed the invisible emanations to be present.... The portly Chief stood watching the dial of my Geiger counter, completely bewildered. The deck was clean, anybody could see that, clean enough for the Admiral himself to eat his breakfast off of. So what was all this goddam radioactivity?

Where is Bikini?

Bikini Atoll is one of the 29 atolls and five islands that compose the Marshall Islands. These atolls of the Marshalls are scattered over 357,000 square miles of a lonely part of the world located north of the equator in the Pacific Ocean. They help define a geographic area referred to as Micronesia.

Marshall Island History

Once the Marshalls were discovered by the outside world, first by the Spanish in the 1600's and then later by the Germans, they were used primarily as a source for producing copra oil from coconuts. The Bikini islanders maintained no substantial contacts with these early visitors because of Bikini Atoll's remote location in the very dry, northern Marshalls. The fertile atolls in the southern Marshalls were attractive to the traders because they could produce a much larger quantity of copra. This isolation created for the Bikinians a tightly integrated society bound together by close extended family association and tradition, where the amount of land you owned was a measure of your wealth.
In the early 1900's the Japanese began to administer the Marshall Islands. This domination later resulted in a military build up throughout the islands in anticipation of World War II. Bikini and the rest of these peaceful, low lying coral atolls in the Marshalls suddenly became strategic. The Bikini islanders' life of harmony drew to an abrupt close when the Japanese decided to build and maintain a watchtower on their island to guard against an American invasion of the Marshalls. Throughout the conflict the Bikini station served as an outpost for the Japanese military headquarters in the Marshall Islands, Kwajalein Atoll.
In February of 1944, toward the end of the war, in a gruesome and terrifying bloody battle, the American forces captured Kwajalein Atoll and thereby effectively crushed the Japanese hold on the Marshall Islands. The five Japanese men left on Bikini, while hiding in a covered foxhole, killed themselves with a grenade before the American military forces could capture them.


Americas Decision to Use Bikini as a Bombing location

After the war, in December of 1945, President Harry S. Truman issued a directive to Army and Navy officials that joint testing of nuclear weapons would be necessary "to determine the effect of atomic bombs on American warships." Bikini, because of its location away from regular air and sea routes, was chosen to be the new nuclear proving ground for the United States government. 

In February of 1946 Commodore Ben H. Wyatt, the military governor of the Marshalls, traveled to Bikini. On a Sunday after church, he assembled the Bikinians to ask if they would be willing to leave their atoll temporarily so that the United States could begin testing atomic bombs for "the good of mankind and to end all world wars." King Juda, then the leader of the Bikinian people, stood up after much confused and sorrowful deliberation among his people, and announced, "We will go believing that everything is in the hands of God."


While the 167 Bikinians were getting ready for their exodus, preparations for the U.S. nuclear testing program advanced rapidly. Some 242 naval ships, 156 aircraft, 25,000 radiation recording devices and the Navy's 5,400 experimental rats, goats and pigs soon began to arrive for the tests. Over 42,000 U.S. military and civilian personnel were involved in the testing program at Bikini.
The nuclear legacy of the Bikinians began in March of 1946 when they were first removed from their islands in preparation for Operation Crossroads. The history of the Bikinian people from that day has been a story of their struggle to understand scientific concepts as they relate to their islands, as well as the day-to-day problems of finding food, raising families and maintaining their culture amidst the progression of events set in motion by the Cold War that have been for the most part out of their control.

Preparation of Operation Crossroads

In preparation for Operation Crossroads, the Bikinians were sent 125 miles eastward across the ocean on a U.S. Navy LST landing craft to Rongerik Atoll. The islands of Rongerik Atoll were uninhabited because, traditionally, the Marshallese people considered them to be unlivable due to their size (Rongerik is 1/6 the size of Bikini Atoll) and because they had an inadequate water and food supply. There was also a deep-rooted traditional belief that the atoll was inhabited by evil spirits. The Administration left the Bikinians food stores sufficient only for several weeks. The islanders soon discovered that the coconut trees and other local food crops produced very few fruits when compared to the yield of the trees on Bikini. As the food supply on Rongerik quickly ran out, the Bikinians began to suffer from starvation and fish poisoning due to the lack of edible fish in the lagoon. Within two months after their arrival they began to beg U.S. officials to move them back to Bikini.

 In July, the Bikinian leader, Juda, traveled with a U.S. government delegation back to Bikini to view the results of the second atom bomb test of Operation Crossroads, code named Baker. Juda returned to Rongerik and told his people that the island was still intact, that the trees were still there, that Bikini looked the same.

ikinian’s and their treatment by the US

The two atomic bomb blasts of Operation Crossroads were both about the size of the nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. Eighteen tons of cinematography equipment and more than half of the world's supply of motion picture film were on hand to record the Able and Baker detonations, and also the movement of the Bikinians from their atoll.
From December of 1946 through January of 1947, the food shortages worsened on Rongerik; the small population of Bikinians was confronted with near starvation. During the same period of time, the area of Micronesia was designated as a United Nations Strategic Trust Territory (TT) to be administered by the United States. Indeed, it was the only strategic trust ever created by the United Nations. In this agreement, the U.S. committed itself to the United Nations directive to "promote the economic advancement and self-sufficiency of the inhabitants, and to this end shall...protect the inhabitants against the loss of their lands and resources..." The people of Bikini have long seen the irony in the conduct of the TT agreement that allowed the bombing of their homeland and that forced them into starvation on Rongerik Atoll.
In May of 1947, to make the Bikinians situation on Rongerik even more serious, a huge fire damaged many of the coconut trees. By July, when a medical officer from the U.S. visited the island, the Bikinian people were found to be suffering severely from malnutrition. A team of U.S. investigators determined in the fall, after a visit to Rongerik, that the island had inadequate supplies of food and water and that the Bikini people should be moved from Rongerik without delay. The U.S. Navy was harshly criticized in the world press for neglecting the Bikini people on Rongerik. Harold Ickes, a reporter, stated in his 1947 syndicated column "Man to Man" that, "The natives are actually and literally starving to death. "

Immediate preparations began for the transfer of the Bikinians to Ujelang Atoll in the western Marshalls. In November a handful of young Bikinian men traveled to Ujelang, and with the help of Navy Seabees, they began to arrange a community area and to construct housing. At the end of the year, however, the U.S. selected Enewetak Atoll as a second nuclear weapons test site. The Navy then decided that it would be easier to move the Enewetak people to Ujelang despite the fact that the Bikinians had built all the housing and held high hopes that they would be relocated there.
 In January of 1948, University of Hawaii anthropologist, Dr. Leonard Mason, traveled to Rongerik at the request of the Trust Territory High Commissioner to report on the status of the Bikinians living there. Horrified at the sight of the withering islanders, Mason immediately requested a medical officer along with food supplies to be flown in to Rongerik. In March of 1948, after two unpleasant years on Rongerik, the Bikinians were transported to Kwajalein Atoll where they were housed in tents on a strip of grass beside the massive cement airstrip used by the U.S. military. The Bikinians fell into yet another debate among themselves about alternative locations soon after they settled on Kwajalein [photo, right].

It was in June of 1948 that the Bikinians chose Kili Island in the southern Marshalls because the island was not ruled by a paramount king, or iroij, and was uninhabited. This choice ultimately doomed their traditional diet and lifestyle, which were both based on lagoon fishing.

In September of 1948, two dozen Bikinian men were chosen from among themselves to accompany 8 Seabees to Kili to begin the clearing of land and the construction of a housing area for the rest of the people who remained on Kwajalein.
 In November of 1948, after six months on Kwajalein Atoll, the 184 Bikinians set sail once again. This time the destination was Kili Island, their third community relocation in two years. 
Starvation also troubled the Bikinians on Kili; this situation led the Trust Territory administration to donate a 40-foot ship to be used for copra transportation between Kili and Jaluit Atoll. Later, in 1951, the boat was washed into the Kili reef by heavy surf and sunk while carrying a full-load of copra. In the following years rough seas and infrequent visits by the field trip ships caused food supplies to run critically low many times on the island and once even required an airdrop of emergency food rations.

 While the islanders struggled to set up their new community on Kili, the beautiful atoll of Bikini was in the process of being irradiated. In the northern Marshalls in January of 1954, the Air Force and Army men arrived on the Bikinians' former, temporary home of Rongerik Atoll, and jointly set up a weather station to monitor conditions in preparation for Operation Castle. This was a series of tests that would include the first air-deliverable, and the most powerful hydrogen bomb ever detonated by the United States. The U.S. government was operating with the fear that the Russians had already detonated their own hydrogen bomb in 1952. Now, decisions concerning the U.S. testing program were being made at the highest levels of the government. The cold war burned with vigor in the minds of paranoid politicians the world over.
The weather station on Rongerik began regular observations to determine barometric conditions, temperature, and the velocity of the wind up to 100,000 feet above sea level. As the test date for the Bravo shot grew near, the men at the weather station performed many observations per day. They were checking surface wind direction and barometric conditions hourly and upper-level conditions every two hours. As the test date neared, late in the month of February, documented proof exists that Joint Task Force-7 knew that the winds were blowing east from Bikini toward Rongerik Atoll and other inhabited islands because of the continuous reports coming in from their weather station.

 Indeed, according to a Defense Nuclear Agency report on the Bravo blast, the weather briefing the day before the detonation stated that there would be "no significant fallout...for the populated Marshalls." The briefing at 6 p.m., however, stated that "the predicted winds were less favorable; nevertheless, the decision to shoot was reaffirmed, but with another review of the winds scheduled for midnight." The midnight briefing "indicated less favorable winds at 10,000 to 25,000-foot levels." Winds at 20,000 feet "were headed for Rongelap to the east," and "it was recognized that both Bikini and Eneman islands would probably be contaminated." The decision to go forward with the test, knowing that the winds were blowing in the direction of inhabited atolls, was essentially a decision to irradiate the northern Marshall Islands, and moreover, to irradiate the people who were still living on them.