CHAPTER FIVE: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SUNKEN VESSELS OFOPERATION CROSSROADS

James P. Delgado

Ruminating on the nature of nuclear wars afterOperation Crossroads, the Joint Chiefs of Staffconcluded that with atomic weapons “it is quitepossible to depopulate vast areas of the earth’ssurface, leaving only vestigial remnants of man’smaterial works.’” Forty-four years afterCrossroads, Bikini Atoll stands depopulated. Itspeople, relocated for the tests, have notpermanently resettled Bikini. Efforts to “cleanup” Bikini island after a 1968 declaration thatit was once again safe for human habitationerased all traces of Operation Crossroads fromthe surface of the island. Geometricallyplanted palms and rows of uniform concretehouses for a reestablished Bikinian communitybrought a new look to the island. Foundunsafe for continual habitation in 1978, Bikini

was again abandoned, and today hosts a small,transient population of field station supportpersonnel, scientists, and occasional visitors.

Visitors to Bikini seeking to confront thetangible evidence of the world% first nuclearweapons effects tests are thereforedisappointed. While the island itself, with allits “reconstruction,” is a reflection of nuclear-induced change brought about by the tests, thetall observation towers and concretefoundations erected in 1946 for OperationCrossroads are gone. The only evidence liesbeneath the surface of the lagoon, scatteredabout the rim and inside the now-nearlycompletely silt-buried crater formed by theBaker test bomb’s detonation. The ships ofOperation Crossroads, lying where they weresunk by two nuclear blasts, are the last“vestigial” remnants of that time and place.Substantially unchanged, they are the onlyessentially unmodified museum of the dawn ofthe era of the atomic bomb--unlike the picked-over, filled-in, and fenced ground zero of theTrinity Site, or the rebuilt Hiroshima andNagasaki.

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The ships assembled at Bikini for OperationCrossroads and sunk in the tests represent 34years of naval design and development, fromthe oldest ship, Arkansas, built in 1912, to thenewest, ARDC-13, which was rushed tocompletion in March 1946. These vessels, asthe tests’ planners intended, reflect a range ofship types, construction methods, and hullforms, and in total represent in microcosmmany of the elements of a typical naval force,with an aircraft carrier, battleships, cruisers,destroyers, submarines, attack transports, andlanding craft. Some of these vessels, such asUSS Anderson, are the sole surviving intactrepresentatives of specific classes of ships.Many of the ships had long and significantcareers, beginning with the Veracruz landingsof 1914 and the First World War. Most shipsnow sunk at Bikini also had significant WorldWar II careers including roles in majorengagements and battles--the Bismarckbreakout, Pearl Harbor, the Battle of the CoralSea, Midway, the Aleutians campaign, theBattle of the Solomons, the Battle of thePhilippine Sea, and the Battle of Leyte Gulf--

and represent some of the better known andsignificant aspects of the war at sea, such aswolf pack attacks in the submarine war of

attrition against Japan, the seaborne line ofsupply and replenishment, shore bombardment,kamikaze attacks, and the development of thefast carrier task force.

The place of these ships in the history of navaldevelopment, their roles in naval history, andtheir World War II combat records establish

their significance only up to the moment they

were selected for Operation Crossroads. Fromthat point on, their previous histories become

secondary, for the pre-Crossroads significanceof the ships is overshadowed by the social,political, and military decisions that broughtthem to Bikini, and the forces unleashed by the

detonation of two atomic bombs that sent themto the bottom of the atoll’s lagoon, Each ofthese vessels passed over a threshold at the“crossroads” between conventional and nuclearwarfare, as did the world that had built andmanned them. Regardless of type, age, or

career, each vessel that now lies where it wassunk by the Able and Baker test blasts is ofequal significance as the only uncompromisedmaterial record of the early, formative stages

of nuclear weapons design and the development

of a nuclear military policy. While the wreckof Prinz Eugen, secondarily deposited atKwajalein as a direct result of the tests is alsosignificant, its value as an artifact of thebeginning of the atomic age is less so than theships in their primary deposition at Bikini; thisalso follows for the highly contaminated S3target vessels later scuttled or sunk byconventional weapons in the deep ocean

because they were radioactively “too hot tohandle.”

MONUMENTS AND MEMORIALS TO THEDAWN OF THE ATOMIC AGE

The sunken fleet of Operation Crossroads,through its assessment and documentation, nowjoins other monuments and memorials to the

atomic age. There are many such places in theUnited States and Japan, ranging from thedisplay of mock-up full-scale versions of the“Little Boy” and “Fat Man” atomic bombs tothe proud display by the Department of Energyof the Project Sedan crater excavated bynuclear detonation in the Nevada desert. Theeffort to memorialize and celebrate the impactof the bomb began at the same time the newage dawned. Social historian Paul Boyer hasnoted, when asked how a people reacts whenthe entire basis of its existence is fundamentallyaltered, that usually these changes are morediscernible to historians than to those who livethrough them; however, “the nuclear era wasdifferent. It burst upon the world withterrifying suddenness, From the earliestmoments, the American people recognized thatthings would never be the same again.”z

As early as 1946 two actions were taken topreserve both a site and an artifact of the new

age. On March 5, 1946, Senator Carl Hatch ofNew Mexico, a staunch supporter of the bomb,introduced a proposal to create an AtomicBomb National Monument, to be administeredby the National Park Service. The memorial,at the Trinity Site in the New Mexico desertnear San Antonio, was to include a nearbymuseum where artifacts of the bomb’sdevelopment and first test, including the B-29Enola Gay, “from which the first atomic bomb

used in warfare was dropped,,.,”3 would be

displayed. The planned National Monument

and museum were never realized; Enola Gaywas held in reserve for possible use inOperation Crossroads, and the Trinity Siteremained in military hands. (It is nowincluded within the White Sands MissileRange.) A stone and bronze monument waserected by the missile range command in 1965to mark “where the world’s first nuclear devicewas exploded on July 16, 1945.” Designated aNational Historic Landmark in 1975, the site isopen to the public twice each year. In 1990,nearly 6,000 persons visited the site.

Pieces of “Trinitite,” the ceramic-like pale greenfused sand from ground zero, have beencarried off as souvenirs by visitors to theTrinity Site since 1945. Trinitite was fashionedinto costume jewelry by “enterprisingentrepreneurs” in 1945, and by 1952 concernover the future of the vanishing Trinititetemporarily resurrected National Monumentplans, with the National Park Service requestinga 100-lb. box of the fused nuclear slag forretention in its Santa Fe, New Mexico, regionaloffice for a future museum at the Trinity Site,4While most of the Trinitite is now gone fromTrinity Site, other atomic artifacts were saved,Enola Gay was not used for Crossroads

because of engine problems and remained instorage until 1949, when it was donated to theSmithsonian Institution, Restoration of theplane began in 1984 and is expected to end in1994, when Enola Gay will be placed ondisplay by the Smithsonian in a facility outsideWashington, D.C~ Bock’s Car, the B-29 usedto drop an atomic bomb on Nagasaki waspreserved after Crossroads and is now ondisplay at the U.S. Air Force Museum atWright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton,Ohio.

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Other monuments to the beginning of theatomic age do not reflect historical significanceor national pride in a technologicalachievement. The blasted remains of theIndustrial Exhibition Hall in Hiroshima, whosetwisted metal dome has become a symbol ofthe destructive power of the atomic bomb, andis now known as the “A-Bomb Dome,” is onesuch site. Termed both a monument “leftbehind by the bomb,” and a memorial to thecity demolished by “Little Boy,” the dome isthe only tangible remnant of August 6, 1945,apart from the physical and emotional scars ofthe survivors, The preservation of the domewas controversial as Hiroshima was rebuilt.According to journalist Peter Wyden, manysurvivors and “peace groups wanted itpreserved as a reminder of human vulnerability,especially for American visitors to see.” Othersfound it painful, a constant reminder for thosewho wanted no reminding. It was left toslowly disintegrate without demolition until1965, when the Hiroshima City Council votedto preserve the ruin. Money was raised overthe next two years throughout Japan as a“national act for peace,” and in 1967 work tostabilize the dome began.E Today the ruins,part of an atomic peace park, are the backdropof a museum that offers souvenirs of anothersort--the charred, twisted relics of life disruptedor ended by the Bomb---watches, shoes, books,a human hand’s bones fused to a melted paneof glass, and other personal items interspersedwith photographs of its effects on August 6,1945, and the days, weeks, and years thatfollowed.

Unlike the Trinity Site, Enola Gay, Bock’s Car,or the A-Bomb Dome, the ships at Bikini areneither monuments to technology’s impact normemorials. They are now, in their isolationfrom the rest of the world, in a depopulatedland, simply evocative artifacts, the materialrecord not only of Operation Crossroads, butof the fundamental human behaviors thatinspired and brought Crossroads to fruition.

The Able and Baker blasts were more than theworld’s first nuclear weapons effects tests.They were a statement by the United States onmany fronts, a demonstration of U.S. pride inits great and terrible achievement as well as a

striking material example of U.S. power andwealth. Operation Crossroads was thebeginning of an American determination to testand refine the bomb, and at the same timemake it more commonplace in order toalleviate American fears that the bomb madethem more like “potential victims” rather thanbeing “a potential threat to other peoples....’”Crossroads partially succeeded at first byfalsely alleviating some fears, not only at homebut abroad, yet for the first time itdemonstrated that the bomb’s greater threat layin radioactive contamination. Moreimportantly, Bikini was part of a swift andcomplete absorption of the atomic bomb intothe new and vastly altered landscape ofAmerican defense, in which vigilance, suspicion,and the concept of the best defense being astrong offense, born of Pearl Harbor andconfirmed with the development of the bomb,changed not only America’s military but foreignand domestic policy--in large measure movesmade in response to the perceived threat ofglobal communism.

INSURING THE NAVY’S SURVIVAL IN THEAGE OF THE BOMB

The primary purpose of Operation Crossroadswas focused more acutely on its value as ademonstration than as a test. At its simplestlevel, Operation Crossroads, although billed asa joint exercise, was a key aspect of thepostwar struggle between advocates of navaland air power--the latter represented by theArmy Air Corps--over control of the UnitedStates’ military power and national defense.Advocates of air power, using the argumentthat saturation bombing, particularly the fire-bombing raids in Europe and Japan, wascapable of winning a war without pitched seabattles or invasions, felt that the atomic bombhad made the concept of naval power--evennaval aviation--obsolete. The Navy, meanwhile,was acutely sensitive to such suggestions,remembering, as historian Lloyd Graybar notes,“how the Army Air Service had usurped theheadlines for the 1921 bombing test against theex-German battleship Ostfriesland off theVirginia Capes....”* The Navy had previouslyresponded to the threat of air power by

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incorporating it--as is demonstrated by thedevelopment of the aircraft carrier, the Navy’searliest surviving example of which, Saratoga,was sent to Bikini in an ironic role. The Navymoved toward Operation Crossroads in aneffort to incorporate the atomic bomb intonaval warfare by demonstrating “that ships werenot excessively vulnerable to atomic attack ....”and “Navy carrier aircraft could be just asuseful and valuable as Air Force bombers forthe delivery of atomic weapons.”e

As discussed in Chapter One, the initial plansfor Operation Crossroads were laid by theNavy, but were preempted by Brig, Gen, B, M,Giles’ provocative suggestion on September 14,1945, to atomic bomb captured Japanese ships,The Navy, already planning a naval test of thebomb, was quick to assent, in hope of takingthe lead, but subsequent demands by the ArmyAir Force that they be included ultimately ledto Presidential intervention and the creation ofJoint Task Force One, in large measurebecause of Air Force fears that the Navy wouldskew the results of the tests to prove that shipscould and would survive the bomb. While

USS w in the aftemaath of Able, itssuperstmcture crushed, conning tower bent, and“v~ryradio-active.” (National A%hiues)

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efforts were made to promote a public imageof mutual cooperation and interservice amity, amajor motivating factor behind OperationCrossroads and the actual conduct of the tests,was inter service rivalry and the strongdetermination of each service that they bepreeminent. Ironically, for each branchCrossroads’ results were “inconclusive.” TheAir Force, citing the fact that only nine of thetarget vessels escaped sinking, damage, or“unacceptable radioactive contamination,” foundproof of “what it had argued all alon~ shipswere intolerably vulnerable in the atomic age.”1°More significant, however, was the Navy’sresponse to the inconclusive results. The Navyresponded, in large part through the press, thatthe seeming knockout of its ships stressed bythe Army Air Force was the result ofunmanned and undefended ships anchored intight formation. The Navy argued that“modern” ships, “properly dispersed, executingevasive maneuvers and utilizing their owndefenses, would be far less vulnerable...thanj forinstance, fixed air bases.’” 1 Obliquely notedwas the fact that the Army Air Force hadmissed the target ship by “two miles”; theimplication was that dispersed, mobile shipscould outmatch a plane-dropped bomb.

The Navy found an ideal proponent of itssurvival in New York Times reporter Hanson W.Baldwin, who, in the aftermath of Able, noted

that as terrible as the damage seemed, “theresults at Bikini must ...be qualified.” Baldwinalso noted the tight spacing of the ships, theircrewless state, and claimed that much of thedamage “could have been avoided had therebeen fire-fighting crews and damage controlparties aboard.”12 This argument repeatedlyresurfaced, even after Baker, despite theprevailing high levels of radiation on the ships;hence, even when the excessively “hot” Saratogasank, the loss of the ship was attributed less tothe bomb by Baldwin, who opined “perhaps shemight have been saved, had there been a crewaboard. But she died a lonely death...pumpsidle and boilers dead ....”13

Baldwin felt that to meet the bomb and

survive, “ships must seek safety in dispersion,”with redesigned superstructures to betterprotect radar and radio antennae--the greatest

operational casualties of Able--and thatconcrete skins be added to armor hulls againstradiation because of the “relative success ofconcrete structures (buildings in Japan, afloating drydock and a small auxiliary craft atBikini) in withstanding blast, heat andradiation .”14 After Baker, theserecommendations, probably more reflective ofthe Navy’s than Hanson Baldwin’s opinions,were modified to include protection fromradioactive fallout through wash-down systemsand greater underwater protection. Baldwinproposed “a reversion to the turtle-backMonitor-type ship, with thick underwater platesand little exposed superstructures .... Shallowdraft vessels were less exposed to shockdamage .... Naval designers, therefore, maysacrifice draft for security.”i5 The Navyemphasized many of the same points, and inthe immediate aftermath of Crossroads spokerepeatedly and yet vaguely of redesigning shipsto meet the atomic threat. A proposal forredesigned warships surfaced as early asSeptember 1946, when Vice Adm. E. L.Cochrane, chief of the Bureau of Ships,announced that as a result of Crossroads,superstructures would be redesigned; “theresults may be emphatically streamlined topsidestructures designed to reduce the effect of theenormous wide-area pressures produced byatomic bomb blast.’”e As late as 1958, theNavy, in describing USS Norfolk (DL-1)claimed that the ship was “designed as aspecial category of anti-submarine vessel... andincorporates lessons learned at Bikini in herconstruction.’” 7 The Navy won its case “to theextent that public and political pressure” tomerge as a secondary partner with the AirForce and Army, or even to cease to exist“somewhat eased,” giving the Navy time to

develop a nuclear capability at sea.’s

The harsh lessons of the efforts todecontaminate the target ships at Bikini,Kwajalein, and on the mainland, though notstressed at the time, were in fact proof thatthe Navy, on the surface, was excessivelyvulnerable to atomic attack. Even withmoderate damage and a crew aboard, theradioactivity could not be washed away, despitedesign changes such as rounded surfaces, steeldecks, and wash-down systems. The only

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means of dealing with this threat was eitheravoidance or the harsh reality that “crewsdoomed to slow death from exposure to lethalradioactivity are nevertheless able the first few

days after exposure to continue normal duties.The seamen of tomorrow must be prepared to

accept radioactivity as part of the hazards oftheir living and be ready to work and fight andsave their ship even though they know they aredoomed to slow death.”ig With no adequate

defense against the bomb at sea (as well as onland), the Navy moved firmly into line with the

prevalent theory of defense brought about bythe atomic age. When defense was impossible,the best means of defending one’s territory was

through demonstrating a superior ability toinflict damage, namely through a greater

nuclear capability.

A DEMONSTRATION OF WEALTH ANDPOWER

At a similar, but higher level, Crossroads was

a demonstration to the world, particularly theSoviet Union, of the United States’ wealth andpower at a time when the nation, in theaftermath of the war, was assuming the role ofthe global leader. The Los Alamos NationalLaboratory’s archivist and historian notes that

the prevalent attitude of the lab’s weaponsscientists then, as well as now, was thatCrossroads was not a true scientific test,Rather, it was “purely a show.”2° Such a

demonstration is critical when a new leader

assumes the stage. The demonstration of thisfact, given the nuclear apprehension of its own

citizens, was of paramount importance to theU.S. government, and as early as April 1946,Admiral Blandy, speaking in a live radio

broadcast, stated that Crossroads would “helpus to be what the world expects our great,non-aggressive and peace-loving country to be

--the leader of those nations which seeknothing but a just and lasting peace.”21 Morebluntly, commentator Raymond Gram Swingnoted that Crossroads, “the first of the atomicera war games .. ..is a notice served on the worldthat we have the power and intend to beheeded,”22 Several factors support this view.The concept of the United States as the richestnation on earth was implicit at Bikini,

Vannevar Bush, writing in 1949, noted that theproduction of atomic weapons “requires suchmajor expenditures and such major effort thatthey cannot be afforded at all except bycountries that are very strong economically andindustrially.”2s Such a nation was the UnitedStates, “for we paid the bill” for developingsuch weapons, By expending two of theseextremely expensive and rare weapons at Bikini,the United States was demonstrating its wealth,a fact underscored by the sacrifice of atremendous fleet of target ships, all in adestructive display that echoed the potlatchceremonies of Northwest Native Americans whoproved their wealth by purposeful destructionof valued and valuable items.24

The size of the target fleet at Bikini alsounderscored the image of a powerful nation,for, as the Crossroads press releasesemphasized, this cast-off fleet of target shipsrepresented the world’s fourth or fifth largestNavy. The United States, at that time, even iffaced with the loss of all its target ships (asindeed was the case) was still the world’sgreatest naval power, a fact obliquely, and,according to Lloyd Graybar, “disingenuously”mentioned by Admiral Blandy when asked ifthe tests were “provocative:”

Some people fear that these tests maybe construed by other nations as a“martial gesture.” But the principaltargets are naval ships, Great Britain,the only other country possessing astrong Navy, certainly does not believethat we are planning to use the bombagainst her fleet.25

The United States also backed up its image asa powerful nation by symbolically emphasizingAmerica as the principal victor in the war.The inclusion of Prinz Eugen, Nagato, andSakawa as target ships was an echo of theearlier triumphant victory parades ofconquering heroes in Republican and ImperialRome. Particularly indicative of Crossroads asa spectacle were Nagato and Sakawa, both ofwhich were moored within the so-called “fatal”zone of proximity to the planned detonations.Neither vessel was extensively dived aftersinking at Bikini; Sakawa, although briefly

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Breech and the muzzles of Na~ato’s 16.l-inch guns,1946 and muzzles in 1990. The shells from theseguns were modified for use in the Pearl Harborattack. (National Archives and NPS, Larry Murphy)

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boarded after Able, was not dived at all andNagato only briefly to assess the causes of itssinking, Prinz Eugen, however, was mooredwell outside the fatal zone, since it wasintended that the German warship wouldsurvive. Efforts to save the foundering Sakawaafter Able, balanced against this view, may onlybe indicative of keeping the ship afloat for itsfinal destruction in the Baker test,

The two Japanese warships reflect not only the

United States’ particular enmity towards Japanwith underlying racial overtones and bitternessover Pearl Harbor and the brutal war thatfollowed, but a symbolic killing of the enemy’sships with the same weapon that had forcedhis capitulation. Nagato especially fulfilled thatrole as the onetime flagship of the ImperialJapanese Navy and the scene of operationalplanning for Pearl Harbor. Nagato’s “capture”

as a derelict on Tokyo Bay after the Japanesesurrender had symbolized the surrender of theImperial Japanese Navy, Sinking the Japanesebattleship at Bikini ritually “destroyed” thatNavy far better than scrapping or bombardingthe already bombed and badly damagedbattleship with big guns, torpedoes, or 500-lb.bombs--so-called “conventional weapons.”Reminiscent of the Aztec practice of caring forand feeding a captured enemy for inevitablesacrifice was the attention given the Japaneseships. The Navy took quick action against fivesailors accused of trying to scuttle Sakawawhile en route to the MarshalIs, and at Bikini,the ships were carefully tended with supportvessels alongside since “there was some dangerthat the captured Japanese ships.,. might actuallysink,.,if they were left unattended,,.,”ze Theimpact of the two ships’ loss would be less, ifnot non-existent, if allowed to simply founder--it was essential that they be “killed,” Nagato,badly damaged during Baker, was only then leftto slowly die, with no attempt made to savethe ship over a four-and-a-half day periodwhile the equally radioactive Hughes and Fallenwere beached. There was no moving eulogyfor the once mighty warship, simply a notationthat the “Jap” BB had disappeared during thenight after listing and settling in the waterthroughout the day. Nagato’s fate in particularreinforced the concept of America’s superioritythrough atomic power.

CROSSROADS AS SPECTACLE ANDDEMONSTRATION

Crossroads as a spectacle and demonstrationis also underscored by the massive publicityand the presence of foreign observers at thetests. Operation Crossroads was heavilypublicized, with Joint Task Force Oneproviding special facilities aboard USSAppalachian (AGC-1), which became the “pressheadquarters ship,” and the preparation ofmore than a hundred detailed and lengthypress releases, as well as “open” pressconferences during the planning, execution, andaftermath of the tests, Additionally,

to help those correspondents who werestarting off “cold, ” Captain Lee(Crossroads public information officer)arranged, besides press conferences,various orienting schemes. Lectureswere arranged; motion picture films wereprepared and shown; press packets ofpamphlet s... were prepared anddistributed, No effort was spared inmaking this the best-reported as well asbeing the most-reported technicalexperiment of all time [originalemphasis] .27

In all, 114 U.S. radio, newspaper, magazine,and news service reporters attended the Abletest at Bikini, with 75 attending Baker, while10 foreign reporters attended Able and eight

attended Baker. Able’s detonation was evenbroadcast “live” around the world. Hundredsof articles and features dominated the nation’snewspapers, newsmagazine, and newsreels,while two books were published highlightingthe non-classified story and images of the“bombs at Bikini.” As seen earlier, this notonly paid off for the Navy but also providedthe U.S. with a world stage for itsdemonstration of the bomb’s effects. Bikini asa world stage for the United States is alsoreflected by the invitation to foreign observers.Each country having membership in the UnitedNations Atomic Energy Commission wasallowed to send two representatives to Bikini;ten nations accepted, sending 21 observers.Particular attention was paid in the press tothe Soviet observers, as was doubtless the case

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by the Crossroads staff. While the reason forthe invitation to the observers was the statedintent of allaying foreign “suspicion anddisapproval of the planned experimental use ofthe world’s most terrible war weapon” because“the atomic bomb is an international concern,”another, underlying motivating factor was thedemonstration of power the tests represented~6The “target” of this demonstration was theSoviet Union, then the U.S.’S primary opponentfor global domination.

The tremendous investment the United Stateshad in Operation Crossroads is also reflectedby the American attitude that the tests wereindicative of a national achievement oftremendous significance and reflective of auniquely democratic society. As VannevarBush noted three years after Crossroads, theU.S. at that time, while expecting that apotential enemy could in time develop thebomb, felt that the time when “two prospectivebelligerents [would be] frowning at each otherover two great piles of atomic bombs” was faroff. Reflecting on an unnamed but nonethelessexplicit enemy, Bush stated:

The time estimate depends, of course,on how fully we think our adversariesmay put their backs into the effort, howmuch they are willing, or able, toreduce their standard of living in orderto accomplish it. They lack men of

special skills, plants adapted to makingspecial products, and possiblymaterials ....they lack the resourcefulnessof free men, and regimentation is ill--adapted to unconventional efforts. Onthe other hand, their tight dictatorshipcan order effort, no matter how muchit hurts.2g

Thus the atomic bomb was perceived more asa product of American democracy than as aproduct of American intellect, particularly giventhe large contribution of European scientists tothe birth of the concept and the production ofresults. Colleagues of. these great minds whohad remained in occupied Europe had failed tosucceed where their relocated, newly Americancompatriots had triumphed. American prideeventually conspired to recast history it

seemed, so that, in the opinion of some foreignobservers

even official American publicationsdealing with the history of theproduction of the atomic bomb, theBritish considered, minimized thecontributions of British, French, andCanadian scientists. It seems typical ofthis attitude that in the official Americanfilm of the Bikini test the voice of theBritish scientist Ernest Titterton on the

loud-speaker system, counting theseconds that elapsed before theexplosion, was cut out and replaced bya voice with an American accent.oo

The McMahon Act of 1946 excluded foreignparticipation in further U.S. A-Bomb work.However, Crossroads required the use of manyof the British and Canadian scientists from LosAlamos who had worked to develop the bomb.At Bikini, more or less “under the table,” theirvital participation had to be discounted.Hence the “voice over” Titterton’s count downwas actually a product of this new law.

The production of the bomb had beenaccomplished with cooperation and mutualsharing between the United States, Britain,Canada, and to some extent other Europeancountries, during the Manhattan Project. Now,with Operation Crossroads, the stakes of thegame were different, and the tests underscoredthe fact that the United States, which alonehad the bomb and the facilities to make it, wasthe absolute power, even to the point ofemphasizing in as many ways as possible thatnuclear weapons and tests of them wereAmerican. American pride in the bomb, andthe tests, was also indicated by the preparationof special certificates for Crossroadsparticipants, similar to those issued forgraduations, promotions, awards, and rites ofinitiation and passage, such as those given topeople who “crossed the line” at the equatorfor the first time.

Finally, the emphasis of the tests as a keydemonstration of U.S. power and globalleadership was even evinced from those criticalof Operation Crossroads. Senator Scott Lucas

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of Illinois, one of a handful of Congressionalopponents of Crossroads, pointedly asked, “Ifwe are making plans to outlaw the use of theatomic bomb for military purposes, why shouldwe be making plans to display atomic power asan instrument of destruction?”3i Harsher wordswere spoken by the Rev. A, Powell Davies ofWashington, D, C., a Unitarian pastor, who“thundered” from his pulpit that the widely-reprinted picture of Admirals Blandy andLowry, cutting a mushroom-cloud-shaped cakewith Mrs. Blandy to celebrate the successfuldissolution of Joint Task Force One was

Try to imagine yourself for a moment a

continental European, wondering,brooding, asking yourself a hundredtimes a day, will America lead us?Then imagine yourself being shown this

picture. If I had the authority of a

priest of the Middle Ages, I would call

down the wrath of God upon such anobscenity. I would damn to hell.,,thesetraitors to humanity who couldparticipate in such a monstrous betrayalof everything for which thebrokenhearted of the world are

“utterly loathsome”: waiting.32

Admiral and Mrs. W. H. P. Blandy and Rear Admiral F. J. Lowry celebrate the end of OperationCrossroads and the dissolution of Joint task Force One at Washington, D. C., in November- 1946. Theangel food cake drew criticism. (Pictorial Histories)

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LEARNING TO LIVE WITH THE BOMB

Operation Crossroads also was intended todemonstrate U.S. power and the ability tocome to terms with the bomb for the citizensof the United States. The basic domesticmessage of Operation Crossroads was planningfor and supporting national defense. The fear,immediately voiced by many Americans, thatthe bomb would in time be used against theUnited States, most probably in anunannounced, “sneak attack, ” required ananswer from the military and political leadersof America. Crossroads was the first vehiclefor that answer. Admiral Blandy, speaking onthe larger issue of why Crossroads wouldproceed, stated that “the tests stand out clearlyas a defensive measure,” stressing the operationwould determine the how and why of navalsurvival in the atomic age. “By no stretch ofthe imagination can such steps of caution andeconomy be taken as a threat of aggression.If, because of such a false assumption, wefailed to carry out these experiments, to learnthe lessons which they can teach us,” saidBlandy, military planners and weaponsdesigners “would be groping their way along adark road which might well lead to anotherand worse Pearl Harbor.”a3 The fear of a

worse Pearl Harbor was, however, notalleviated by Crossroads, but magnified.

In the aftermath of Able and Baker, thegovernment was placed in the difficult positionof stressing the potent power of its newweapon to strengthen its global leadership rolewhile at the same time attempting to soothepopular fears. Thus public statements fromJoint Task Force One emphasized the terribleeffect of the bombs while knocking down thestraw man of imagined wide-scale death anddestruction as a result of the tests. AdmiralBlandy on numerous occasions repeated thefact that some “wags” had stated after Ablethat Bikini should be renamed “Nothing Atoll,”or “No Atoll Atoll.” An attitude of business asusual was stressed at Bikini, too. On at leastone target vessel, USS Pensacota, the ship’spainted battle record was augmented with amushroom cloud and the word “Able,” in aplace on the record previously reserved fornarrow escapes with death, such as kamikaze

attacks. Yet the classified, more sophisticatedanalysis of Able and Baker, never released tothe public, showed far worse results. Assessing“combat readiness,” the Bureau of Ships groupfound many of the “surviving” vessels would bevirtually dead in the water, their boilers, radar,radio, and equipment out of commission, andtheir crews dead or dying from radiation.

The fears of atomic scientists that the bomb’sdeservedly terrible image would be lessened

was also widely reported. William L,Laurence, the “dean of atomic reporters” whohad covered the Manhattan Project, Trinity,and the atomic bombing of Japan before goingon to report Operation Crossroads, was highlysympathetic to the government’s view of thenew atomic age since he was the only mediarepresentative privileged with an inside view ofthe top-secret Manhattan Project prior toHiroshima. A confidante of many of the“fathers” of the bomb and responsible formolding many of the initial public statementsabout the atomic bomb, Laurence viewed it asthe beginning of a new age of hope, perhapsmore so than fear. Critical of what he termedan “unreasoning fear” of radiation, Laurencealso either overtly participated in knockingdown the straw man or firmly believed Navyassertions, noting in a famous dispatch that

Before Bikini the world stood in awe ofthis new cosmic force .... Since Bikini thisfeeling of awe has largely evaporatedand has been supplanted by a sense ofrelief unrelated to the grim reality of thesituation. Having lived with thenightmare for nearly a year, the averagecitizen is now only too glad to grasp atthe flimsiest means that would enablehim to regain his peace of mind. Hehad expected one bomb to sink theentire Bikini fleet .... He had even beentold that everyone participating in thetest would die. When none of thesethings happened, he is only too eager toconclude that the atomic bomb is, afterall, just another weapon.34

The emphasis to alleviate fear did producesome results. A few foreign observersridiculed the bomb; Soviet press accounts

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“minimized the results,” while “an Argentineradio announcer said he would broadcast thesound of the explosion” of Able, and “then gavea ludicrous peep.”36 Public fears, bolstered bythe clever manipulation of the straw man byJoint Task Force One, declined, though themajor reason for less American concern, atleast for a while, was because of what NormanCousins termed the “standardization ofcatastrophe” since “after four bombs, themystery dissolves into a pattern.” Paul Boyernotes this was because “there are distinct limitson people’s capacity to sustain interest in anyissue--even atomic war.”3* Thus, Boyer notes,the “short-term effect” of the tests “was todampen fears of the atomic bomb..., Forgovernment spokesmen and others seeking tomute “excessive” and “hysterical” atomic bombfears... the apparent “failure” of the Bikini testwas a godsend.”s’

THE REALITY OF THE BOMB:RADIOACTIVE FEARS

Yet Operation Crossroads did inspire fear, for“relief was not the only reaction,,, for Bikinibecame a sort of ideological battleground, asits symbolism was appropriated for differentpolemical purposes, ”3* The issue thatultimately induced fear, even among themilitary, and which in time reached the public,was not the destructive power of atomic blasts,but of the radiation that followed, The dayafter Baker, The New York Times editorialnoted that the test had introduced a new factor

in nuclear war--’’the huge mass of radioactive

water which may fall on a ship,”3g Efforts tokeep the true lesson of Crossroads--the virtual

destruction of the target fleet by radioactivecontamination--failed as the news slowly leakedout, for the Navy could not keep the fate of so

154

many capitol ships and lesser vessels out of the

public eye, even at far off Kwajalein. AsDavid Bradley noted upon his departure fromthe ghost fleet of contaminated ships atKwajalein, leaving the ships behind providedonly the “illusion of escape.”4° The accountingof ships “lost” to contamination, first alluded toin Crossroads releases in September 1946, feda growing fear of radioactivity that wasconfirmed by color photographs of atom-blastedinternal organs and blood-swollen brains ofirradiated test animals published in Lifemagazine in August 1947. The selection ofgoats and pigs for test exposure because oftheir internal similarities to humans reinforcedthe grim, if not devastating impact of thephotos--these could be the radiation-destroyedremains of people. Boyer has stated, “it wasBikini, rather than Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

that first brought the issue of radioactivitycompellingly to the nation’s consciousness.”4iThe 1948 publication of David Bradley’s NoPlace to Hide and its grim message that thereal story “was not the spectacle but theaftermath,” and the 1949 publication of anarticle by Drew Pearson that added up thevarious press releases about the sinking ofcontaminated ships and reported that thesinking of 61 radioactive vessels constituted a“major naval disaster” focused more publicattention on the Crossroads radiationproblem.42 One government response to thenews was an attempt to focus radiation fearsonly on bombs detonated in or on the water--1950 Civil Defense handbooks discussed atlength the effects of an atomic attack on aharbor, which presumably only then wouldrelease a “radioactive mist.” Left unemphasizedwere the ionizing effects of neutron radiationfrom an air burst, or the possibility of lingeringradiation in such a circumstance.

P. M. S. Blackett, writing in 1948 in an attemptto alleviate the “nuclear neurosis,” drove homethe point that the government was stressing,namely that

at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where thebombs were exploded well up in the air,it has been stated that very littleradioactivity remained .... On the otherhand, after the underwater test

Independence at San Francisco in January 1951,ready for sinking as a target ojf the Farallonesafter three years of radiolo~”cal testing and useas a training ship for radiation moniton”ng anddecontamination. The hulk was recentlydiscovered in 3,000 feet of water. (SanFrancisco Maritime National Historical Park)

explosion at Bikini, intense radioactivityremained for several months in the waterand on the ships which had beendeluged with active water, and wouldhave killed all living things remainingthere for any length of time.43

This message muted the fact that the deadlyradioactivity remained for more than severalmonths, leading to the sinking of nearlyevery target ship within a four-year periodafter the tests, and no mention was made, norwas the danger fully apprehended of the initialburst of radioactivity during a detonation andits effects.

In the end, Crossroads had a tremendousimpact, in its time, in refocusing nuclearapprehension from the blast effect to the real,more potent danger of the radioactive “toxins”left by the bomb. The significance of thislesson has been forgotten, however, in the eraof the subsequent development of the hydrogenbomb, which introduced not only the capacityto vaporize fleets and devastate vast regions,but destroy nations and dust the globe withhighly radioactive fallout. In an age ofmegatonnage, the pre-1954 “simpler” age of

155

kilotonnage has faded from memory with theexception of “key” dates, such as the Trinityexplosion, or the wartime use of the bomb. AsLloyd Graybar notes, Operation Crossroads isnow obscure, its role in the nuclear arms racefor the most part forgotten, scarcely cited instandard histories of the bomb or of the ColdWar, and its role in accelerating the Cold Warstill the topic of debate.

Bikini Atoll is better remembered for theBravo test shot of 1954 that ushered in thenew, more terrible era of the H-Bomb, and forthe French-named bathing suit that

bomb and an attempt to find some element ofhumanity in a weapon that aroused anotherprimal instinct--the fear of racial annihilation.The linkage is more than symbolic, for theresponse to the threat of extinction is increasedefforts to reproduce.

For a few, Bikini and Operation Crossroadsrepresented a crossroads in their own lives--particularly for the now exiled Bikinians, the“nuclear nomads” of the Pacific, and survivingCrossroads veterans, some of whom are battlingcrippling and fatal diseases traced to theirexposure to the contaminated ships and the

characterized both the sexual im~gery of the failout of Able and Baker, -

in de year t946

‘,

Authenticated:W, H, P. B1..d$

v,<. Admml U S. NWY

Cm,nmda j.,”! Ta,k ?wce 0“.

Commanding

certificateissued to the 42,000 participants in Operation Crossroads. (National Archives)

156

CROSSROADS AT THE BOTTOM OF THESEA

The sunken ships of Operation Crossroads, nowbrought out of obscurity by their archeologicalassessment, not only join the sites, memorials,monuments, and places that commemorate thedawn of the atomic age, but also provide thematerial means to explore the motivatingfactors and results of the Able and Baker tests.What do the ships represent? At one level,they embody the first human attempts tograpple with the bomb, at first by confrontingit, as represented at one stage by the “can-do”attitude of the crew of the battered, radioactiveUSS Skate, who boarded their beached sub,pumped it out, ran up the flag on a bentperiscope, fired up the diesels, backed off thereef, and anchored with the fleet as a “liveship.”44 At a later stage, the ships representin a very real sense, in their most compellingrole, the ultimate dilemma, when the problemof contamination and hence “living with thebomb” was found insurmountable and theoption taken was the “illusion of escape”--leaving them at Bikini as wrecks, or takingthem to Kwajalein to rust and eventually besunk out of sight and out of mind,

The ships are also artifacts of the key factorsmotivating Crossroads, represented in part bythe selective stripping of the vessels. Thespectacle of destruction, a demonstration ofwealth and power, had to be reconciled withthrifty American public opinion despite theintention of the message to foreign audiences.Thus an emphasis was placed upon “obsolete”ships, scrap costs vs. replacement costs, andthe removal of certain “valuable” objects andequipment from the target ships. Archeologicalexamination of the target ships at Bikini showsselective stripping of some weapons, but notall, such as two of Saratoga’s 5-inch gunhouses, and the retention of many of the40mm, 20mm, and single 5-inch guns and gundirectors, as well as the removal of Pelorusfrom their stands on the exposed areas of thebridge and the removal of only the clocks fromtarget aircraft.

The periscopes of Apogon and Pilotjlsh wereremoved along with Pilotfish’s target-bearing

Prinz Eu~en’s bell, removed prior to Crossroa&,like those of the other targets. For most of thesevessels, the bells are the major tan~”blereminder ofthe ships. (NPS, Candace Clifford)

transmitters. Yet Apogon’s TBT was left

behind. Clearly the stripping was insufficient,if not token, as demonstrated by the retentionof many valuable items, and the subsequentproblems with the pilfering of medical supplies,linen, and food from the target ships duringOperation Crossroads by the crews of lesser-supplied support ships. The argument that theships were not intended to be lost must bebalanced with the fact that a special emphasiswas placed on the removal of all ceremonial,ornamental, and “historically significant”artifacts from the ships, such as commemorativeplaques and bells.

The presence of the Japanese ships is materialproof--along with the ships’ mooring in thefatal zone, and the undocumented sinking ofthe scarcely assessed Nagato--of the significantsymbolic role of the battleship. Nagato alonestands apart from the other ships as being avessel whose pre-Crossroads history establishesits Crossroads significance. Nagato, like

157

Sakawa, was brought to Bikini to die under thefatal blow of the atomic bomb.

The large number of test gauges and otherinstruments observed on Saratoga are indicativeof two human phenomena. The first is the

adaptation of technology to comprehend theincomprehensible--namely measuring the forceand actions of an atomic blast. Theinstruments, as sophisticated as the inclinometergauges that still rest on Saratoga’s bridge, andas simple as tin cans and the ruptured foilpeak pressure gauges on the ubiquitous“Christmas trees” and the indentation pressuregauges that litter the flight deck and aftermost5-inch gun mount on the carrier, arecompelling micro-artifacts of humanity’sattempts to grapple with the bomb, just as theships themselves are the larger, macro-artifacts.The second phenomenon is the abandonment ofthe gauges, reflective of the radionuclide

contamination of the ships and the water whichbrought about the decision to abandon the

project, leave the wrecks, and sink thecontaminated ships left afloat.

CONFRONTING THE ATOMIC AGE

In viewing and visiting the wrecks of OperationCrossroads, and trying to prognosticate aprobable future for them, a few thoughts cometo mind. People have an attraction to horror,and a human need, at least for some, toconfront their fears. Bikini offers the

opportunity to face the ultimate horror of oursociety--nuclear destruction--at a time when theunleashed atom was sufficiently powerful torend steel, vaporize water, and sink capitalships. At the same time, the power was not sogreat as to leave no trace at all but a darkblue, deep crater in the atoll, as was the casewith Bravo’s hydrogen burst in 1954. The shipsprovide a human scale of reference, acheckpoint from which to begin to comprehend,at its now minor scale, what Able and Baker’s

No souvenirs is the order of the day as journalists inspect burned test materials on the foredeck of Pensacola.(National Archives)

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progeny can reap. The power of these “small”bombs to sink and maim a ship arerepresented in the mangled, “stomped flat”Gilliam, the twisted, half-smashed Arkansas, thesplit bottom, toppled stack, and dented flightdeck of Saratoga, and the abandoned,irradiated, capsized hulk of Prinz Eugen.

The significance of the bomb and what it haddone was not lost on contemporary observersand participants, and is materially representedby the taking of souvenirs from the ships aftereach test. Thus painted signs that commandvisitors to take “No Souvenirs” occasionallyappear in the photographs of scorched andmangled ships. Reflective of the pilfering ofthe radioactive Trinitite, the collection ofsouvenirs from Bikini was done withoutapparent concern over the possible risk. DavidBradley reports that one man “collected achunk of metal from the ship considered tohave been nearest to the blast” after Able.“He had it stowed away in a locker beside thebed. Then one day somebody was checking ageiger counter in the vicinity and began to pickup a strong emission. At once he trackeddown and located the loot and showed itsanxious owner that he’d been sleeping in ashower of gamma rays.”45 Reports of lootingartifacts from the ships, notably running lightsfrom Saratoga in recent years reflect thecompulsion for souvenirs from this atomicgraveyard, as does the removal of shells andwave-washed dead coral by visitors to theBikini field station, including the archeological

assessment team and the media representatives

there at the same time.

Yet the implications and reality of the bombs

at Bikini is too much for some people. Whilesome confront their fears, others deny them.This is found in the need by some to focus onthe non-nuclear history of the ships, aphenomena that began before and during thetests as war records and the symbolic value of“great” and famous ships were touted. Saratogais perhaps most reflective of this, for it was themost eulogized of Crossroads’ victims. It canbe argued that Saratoga at Bikini was to agreat extent not the same ship commissioned in1927, nor the ship that had fought pitchedbattles at sea during the war. To be those

things, the ship would have to have sunkduring those times, and in those roles,Changed and modified for Crossroads, thecarrier was reflective of a new reality and anew role.

Oceanographer Willard Bascom, working atBikini during the various nuclear tests of theearly 1950s, wrote in his memoirs of how heand others sought to dive Saratoga, “famous forits exploits in World War II.” This tellingcomment demonstrates the humanpreoccupation with the “great,” or as Bascomtermed the carrier, the “wonderful.” The needto dive the ship was to see Saratoga, not toassess what the bomb had done, and in thisBascom was and is no different from anyoneelse who has ever dived at Bikini, including theNational Park Service team, as well as thosewho have focused submerged archeologicalefforts on famous ships like Monitor or Titanic.We too at times succumb to the historical auraof a famous ship. The need to confront and

touch the ship was powerful for Bascom andhis colleagues; “Most important, we walked, orat least touched down, on the flight deck,stirring up wisps of dust.” The images that theship evoked were not of Crossroads or of thebomb. Rather,

Back aboard our LCM the four diverswere unusually pensive, our minds stillcommunicating with the spirits of theSaratoga’s long-gone pilots and crew.

Having visited their old haunts, our

minds reconstructed the ship as it had

been in its glory days. We could seethe uniformed figures on the rail of thebridge and A-55 on the deck, as theghost ship streamed through the fourth

dimension, running into the wind like theFlying Dutchman to launch phantom

aircraft .46

The need to deny the bomb’s impact on theships, and by extension into our lives, is alsoreflected by the reaction of some of USSArkansas’ crew. The 26,100-ton battleship,popularly but incorrectly thought to have beenlifted up, end on end, in the Baker blastcolumn, was nonetheless battered, smashed halfflat, and capsized to lie bottom-up in 180 feet

159

of water. Viewing color slides and video ofthe wreck, some of Arkansas’ crew at the 4thannual reunion in 1990 questioned the ship’sidentity, one man mistakenly stating that hehad seen previous footage of the battleshipupright, its guns pointing forward in theirturrets. Another wrote that he was “amazedand spellbound,” because “somehow, I hadalways imagined that our Grand Old Lady... wassitting upright on the bottom of the ocean floorstill looking as gallant as she did the day I lastwent ashore in 1946.”47

The future of the ships at OperationCrossroads might be more secure if advertisedas a collection of great and famous ships ofWorld War II and a museum of wartime shiptypes. Yet tourism of the site may hinge morein the long run on its role as monument to thedawn of the atomic age and as a museum ofmaterial remains of the attitudes, thoughts, andactions of that time. The human need to

confront the past, even its unpleasant aspects,is ingrained in our culture, as shown bytourism of battlegrounds and other “sacred”sites sanctified by great loss of life in war orvisiting scenes of disaster, such as theJohnstown, Pennsylvania, flood, now a unit inthe National Park System. The tourists atPearl Harbor, Custer Battlefield, Johnstown,Dachau, and Hiroshima confront their humanmortality and perhaps reaffirm their joy inpersonal survival, Bikini, without loss of life,faces a difficult challenge in that people mighthave difficulty in making that same association.Yet the spectre of the extinction of all lifeclings only to nuclear weapons sites. As amember of the first generation to livecompletely under the nuclear sword ofDamocles that was slung at Trinity, Hiroshima,Nagasaki, and Bikini, the ships at Crossroads,more so than any other site or battlefield, gaveme the first true opportunity to assess mymortality, as well as the world’s,

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NOTES

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

“The Evaluation of the Atomic Bomb as a MilitaryWeapon: The Final Report of the Joint Chiefs of StaffEvaluation Board for Operation Crossroads,” (June 30,1947), CCS 471.6, 10-15-46, Section 9, Part 1, p. 60.National Archives Record Group 218.

Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light, p. 4.

“Atomic Bomb National Monument, Proposed,” S.2054,79th Cong., 2d Sess., March 5, 1946.

“First A-Bomb Blast Site to be National Monument,”Washington Daily News, April 3, 1952. The NationalPark Service’s Chief of its Museum Division urgedcollection of Trinity Site artifacts and “material evidenceof the bomb explosion” on March 15, 1946. OnOctober 7, 1947, the Service’s Chief Historian urged thesame after a tour of the site, including saving therapidly dispersing “atomsite” in the blast crater. TheDirector of the NPS wrote to the Atomic EnergyCommission on Janua~ 7, 1952, requesting the 100-lbs.of Trinitite. This correspondence is on file in theTrinity Site National Historic Landmark (NHL) file,Division of Histo~, National Park Service, Washington,D.C.

“Enola Gay Resurrected: Craftsmen Restore First AtomBomber,” Washington Times, April 28, 1989, p. B6.Also see the Bock’s Car Natic$nal Historic Landmark(NHL) file, Division of History, National Park Service,Washington, D.C.

Peter Wyden, Day One: Before Hiroshima and After(New York Simon and Schuster, 1984), pp. 342-343.

Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light, p. 14.

Lloyd J. Graybar, “Bikini Revisited,” MilitaryAffairs(October 1980), p. 118. Ironically, the wreck ofOstfn”esland, recently located by sport divers, is nowalso the subject of investigation.

Vincent Davis, Postwar Defense Policy and the U.S.Navy, 1943-1946. (Chapel Hill: The University of NorthCarolina Press, 1966), p. 243.

10Ibid., p. 246.

11Ibid.

12Hanson W. Baldwin, “Atom Bomb is Proved MostTerrible Weapon: Surveys in Japan and Bikini Test AreEnough to Change Concepts of War,” The New YorkTimes, July 7, 1946.

13Hanson W. Baldwin, dispatch of 22:02 to The New YorkTimes, July 25, 1946, on board USS Appalachian. Pressdispatches, July 25, 1946, from nos. 2543 to 2644,National Archives Record Group 374, Records of theDefense Atomic Support Agency, National Archives.

14Baldwin, “Atom Bomb is Proved Most TerribleWeapon,” The New York Times, July 7, 1946.

15Hanson W. Baldwin, “Lessons Learned in Bikini Tests,”The New York Times, August 1, 1946.

16“Guided Missile Warships on Way for RedesignedAtomic-Age Navy,” The New York Times, September 8,1946.

17Jane’s Fighting Ships, 1958-19S9, (1958), p. 366. USSNorfolk was the first of the Destroyer Leaders, laterreclassified as frigates. The ship featured rounded gunmounts and steel decks for passive defense againstfallout. “Far too expensive to duplicate,” Norfofk “spentmost her career as an experimental prototype.” SeeDestroyers, pp. 258-259. Friedman, interestingly, doesnot mention Bikini-induced changes to warships in hisbook The Postwar Naval Revolution (Annapolis: NavalInstitute Press, 1986), citing only tactical and strategicchanges as the result of the development of the atomicbomb--for example the dispersion at sea of carrier taskgroups (see p. S1).

18Davis, Postwar Defense Policy, p. 246. Also seeGraybar, “Bikini Revisited,” p. 121.

19Baldwin, “Lessons Learned in Bikini Tests,” The NewYork Times, August 1, 1946.

20Interview with Roger Meade, LANL, Los Alamos, NewMexico, December 19, 1990.

21Address by Vice Admiral W. H. P. Blandy, U.S.N.,Commander Joint Task Force One, on New YorkHerald-Tribune Youth Forum, over ColumbiaBroadcasting System, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New YorkCity, April 13, 1946 “Why Test the Atom Bomb?”Joint Army-Navy Task Force One, Crossroads ReleaseNo. 36, Department of Energy Archives, Las Vegas,document #101008, Hereafter cited as Blandy, “WhyTest the Atom Bomb?”

22As cited in Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light, p. 83.

23Vannevar Bush, Modern Arms and Free Men: ADiscussion of the Role of Science in PreservingDemocracy (New York Simon and Schuster), p. 92.

24All of this had to be rectified with postwar budget cuts,swords-to-plowshares ideology, and a thrifty Americantaxpayer. See the discussion of this concept at the endof the chapter.

161

25“Statement of Vice Admiral Blandy, U.S. N., CommanderJoint Army-Navy Task Force Number One on Purposesof Atomic Bomb Tests.” Joint Armv-Naw Task ForceNumber One, Crossroads Release No. 37: Departmentof Energy Archives, Las Vegas, Document No. 101007.

26“Cruiser Sabotage Alleged,” The New York Times, May8, 1946, and Shurcliff, Bombs at Bikini, p. 52.

27Ibid,, pp. 36-38, passim.

28“Bikini Observers,” The New York Times, May 9, 1946.

29Bush, Modern Arms and Free Men, pp. 93-94.

30Robert Jungk, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns: APersonal History of the Atomic Scientists (New York:Harcourt, Brace and Co,, 19S6), p. 251.

31Graybar, “Bikini Revisited,” p. 120.

32“Atomic Age Angel Food,” Time Magazine, November18, 1946, p. 31.

33B1andy, “Why Test the Atom Bomb?”

34William L. Laurence, “Bikini ‘Dud’ Decried for LiftingFears, ” The New York Times, August 4, 1946,Laurence’s seminal and sympathetic role in introducingthe bomb is discussed in Spencer R. Weart, NuclearFear: A History of Images (Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1988), pp. 98-102, passim,

35Weart, Nuclear Fear, p. 109,

36Norman Cousins, “The Standardization of Catastrophe,”Satutiay Review of Literature, August 10, 1946, p. 10,as cited in Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light, p. 293.

37Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light, p. 84.

38Ibid.

39“The Underwater Test,” The New York Times, July 26,1946.

40Bradley, No Place To Hide, p. 166.

41Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light, p. 90.

42Drew Pearson, “Bikini Losses Naval Disaster, ”Washington Post, February 18, 1949.

43P. M. S. Blackett, Fear, War, and the Bomb: Militaryand Political Consequences of Atomic Energy (NewYork McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1949), p. 71.

44Bradley, No Place to Hide, pp. 66-69, passim.

45Ibid., p. 70,

46Willard Bascom, The Crest of the Wave: Adventures inOceanography (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), p.169.

47Roy L, Alton, President, USS Arkansas (BB-33)Association, to James P. Delgado, June 4, 1990. Letterin the author’s files,

162