Something important was in the wind, shrouded in more secrecy than anyone had previously seen. Liberty was over at midnight, 1-1-1954 and all hands had been warned that consequences for missing the ship's departure in the early A.M. would be dealt with more harshly than normal.Point Loma was almost hidden by fog the next morning as we pulled out of San Diego Harbor around daybreak. Rumor had it we were bound for Australia and that sounded fine to all, but it was strictly speculation. Word also had it that we were sailing under sealed orders. About two days after leaving Pearl Harbor we finally were told we were going to Bikini Atoll in the south Pacific, producing fantasy visions of south sea girls in grass skirts.
We all knew some atomic testing had been conducted there after WWII and everyone had seen photos or newsreel clips of the A-Bomb that ended the war with Japan. It was (as far as anyone knew) the most destructive force thought up by man and was unimaginable for many to visualize.
In the following days we were instructed about radiation types, like Alph and Beta and some of their effects, along with others having futuristic sounding names. We were told you couldn't see, hear, smell, taste or feel radiation. What was referred to as the half-life of radiation was interesting, but what the hell did all this have to do with us, the crew of the small aircraft carrier U.S.S. Bairoko?
Since we were bound for Bikini Atoll it had everything to do with us. We were to take part in the testing of something called the H-Bomb, said to be even more powerful than an A-Bomb.
As things weren't questioned by enlisted men, we were in no position to change things even if we'd wanted, on to Bikini we went. We were issued some things called radiation badges (small squares of something encased in plastic, about 1 1/2" X 1 1/2" X 1/8" in size), told to clip them onto the outside of our clothing, and after testing started we were never to be without them. They would periodically be exchanged for new ones, depending on conditions requiring radiation measurement. Even the most imaginative of us could not picture our government taking advantage of our gung-ho patriotism by using us as guinea pigs. Years later the truth started to surface about that, but that's a different story altogether.
As we got further into the tropics the weather, even in February, was like summer. Sunny days in the 80's and 90's and for the next seven months the temperature never seemed to get below 70 degrees. We let ourselves forget for awhile where we were going, or why, and worked on our suntans. No one had ever heard about depleting the ozone layer in some way, much less that too much sun could cause skin cancer.
When we anchored inside the lagoon at Bikini Atoll, we found ourselves looking at a ring of palm tree covered low islands, none very large size, connected by coral reefs. Tropical sunrises and sunsets were the only things of beauty we were graced with, but as in many relationships, with familiarity came boredom.
Tha Marine helicopter squadron stationed aboard was busy flying back and forth to a couple of the islands, mostly carrying scientists and members of the Atomic Energy Commission. Some days were busier than others, but all contributed to the growing feeling of anticipation as each day passed. Finally we were told the first test would take place on 3-1-54, at approximately 0530 hours and then we'd get to see what had generated all the secrecy and special preparations.
In the dim pre-dawn light on test day the ship's crew and Marine personnel, except those manning work or duty stations, were assembled in orderly fashion on the flight deck. We were out to sea, east of the atoll and cruising slowly as we waited for the test to begin. We all sat on the flight deck facing the stern of the ship looking east, directly away from ground zero. It was repeatedly announced that we were not to look toward ground zero without special goggles, and smoked glass was not adequate protection.
Of course enlisted men had no access to any of the special goggles and we understood that to look at ground zero without them would almost instantaneously cause a permanent loss of sight.
Picture yourself sitting on a wooden flight deck, the sky a graduated pastel brightness ranging from a soft red orange and light yellow glow in front of you, to a dark blue-black behind you. Some stars and an infrequent scattering of clouds rimmed with red-orange edges are all that is visible in the sky at this time. The temperature in the low 70's seens cool and comfortable, with just a slight breeze at times.
Detonation - We are 35 miles from ground zero as the sky starts to lighten a bit more. Over a loudspeaker we hear instructions to sit facing away from ground zero until told we can turn around. Then we hear, "Ten-nine-eight..." The tension and suspense are suddenly very real as the countdown continues and the thought crosses my mind, "What the hell am I doing here?" I silently pray we'll be all right, because no one knows what's going to happen. "...seven-six...Don't turn around until told...three-two-one-MARK!"
Nothing happens at first. But then there's a quick flash of light from behind us, after which it starts getting light, as if someone were shakily and hesitantly turning a rheostat switch controlling the brightness, turning it faster as it gets brighter. After a few moments I think, "This isn't bad, almost like full daylight," and still it gets brighter. A white bright. As the brightness all around gets almost to the same intensity as looking straight at the sun (every kid has done it once) and I'm almost ready to close my eyes because it is starting to become painful, the switch suddenly is reversed and the light very quickly drops back to the natural dawn light of before the detonation. I breathe a sigh of relief, we're still OK.
Now we're told we can turn around and look. The sight is so mammoth and breathtaking, and getting larger, it's almost beyond description with mere words. We see what looks like a huge pulsating mushroom, cloud like in appearance with a texture of giant cotton candy, expanding in size and in all directions. A single column that looks miles wides (like one taken from the front of a southern plantation manor) seems to be holding the whole thing up. Fog like clouds roll slowly out across the ocean from the base, like something a Hollywood special effects crew would be proud of creating. The towering column has movement, as if we're watching bark on a large old-growth fir tree moving upwards, through two shimmering, funnel-shaped clouds hanging upside down on it. The cloud on the bottom is the largest, and everything seems to move upwards in slow motion. The whole scene is displayed in an exhibition of every color and shade of the spectrum imaginable. It is the most gargantuan, most awesomely beautiful sight I've ever seen. Memory may dim about some things, but after 52 years that sight is still vividly clear in my memory, as if it took place yesterday.
Now we can see the shock wave traveling towards us. That's right, see it! It pushes clouds out of the way momentarily, much the same as waves in the surf move a piece of wood as they pass. We watch it's progress as it races towards us across the surface of the ocean, rippling the water as it passes. We feel ourselves tense up in anticipation of what it will feel like when it reaches us. Suddenly we feel a sudden pressure change in our ears and there are two loud claps of thunder as the shock wave strikes the bow of the ship and then the island structure, creating sonic booms.
The whole sky seems to be filled with the cotton-ball appearing cloud and it's moving over us, we can't outrun it! The cause of this, we're told later, is a change in wind direction at higher altitudes, caused by the the detonation. This wasn't supposed to happen. This test did not go off quite as planned. A fine granulated dust starts falling from this cloud later in the morning and we're told it contains radiation, but we are not yet aware of how much.
Later in the morning also, the blueness of the sky can be seen for only about an inch above the horizon in all directions, the rest of the sky is filled with the cloud from the test. Geiger counters can be heard buzzing all over, sounding like a bunch of angry rattlesnakes, as the radiation on the ship's surface is measured.
For the first time since our arrival at the atoll, we are joined at lunch by some civilian scientists who were evacuated from one of the islands. Civilians had always eaten with the officers during the days before the test, but now there were too many at once for the Officer's Wardroom to handle, so we got the overflow. They told us they had been in a bunker with 8' thick reinforced concrete walls, covered by 12'-15' of earth, 15 miles across the lagoon from ground zero. They told of feeling like the whole bunker had been picked up and moved by the detonation. Their excitement from the experience could be felt, like static electricity. It was the only time in the service that I felt the people in charge did not have complete control of everything and it was apparent they were playing it by ear.
Soon work parties were formed to wash down the ship. Garbage cans of soapy water were poured over the decks and scrub brushes were used to wash everything, like a giant car wash. Sprinklers were rigged all over the island structure and with the water turned on we resembled a large sculptured fountain. That's how we appeared on the cover of Collier's Magazine later that year, I believe the May issue. We spent two days scrubbing the ship before someone in charge decided we were decontaminated. I felt the flight deck was clean enough to be used as a serving platter for some giant's meal. Radiation badges were changed and those of us who had been working outside were gone over closely with Geiger counters. You don't feel anything different about yourself, but it gives one an eerie feeling to have a Geiger counter buzz like a rattlesnake's warning as it passes over you, then quit as it leaves you.
According to the World Book Encyclopedia, the resultant fallout from this test, nicknamed Bravo, showered down over a 7,000 square mile area. A Japanese fishing boat, the Lucky Dragon, was also caught in the fallout some 300 miles away and it's crewmen later received a large monetary amount of compensation from our government, but I don't remember ever hearing of this fact at the time.
I later found three brown spots on my body about the size of quarters, where metal had been near my skin. One spot on my left ankle where I wore my dog-tag, one on the front of my left hip where I carried my keys and the other spot on the front of my right hip where I carried my cigarette lighter. Though I never experienced any difficulties from them at the time they stayed visible for years afterwards. One of the Marines had a Beta burn removed surgically from his stomach under where his belt buckle normally was after that first test (he told me that my spots looked like what he'd had removed) and although I asked a couple of doctors, I got no answers as to what they were. The doctors didn't seem excited, so I trustingly figured I must be OK.
At a later stage of my life I had to sign a waiver to obtain medical insurance, the result of what they refer to as "degenerative joint disease" in my knees, with no idea (at that time) if that condition was the result of the spots on my body that showed up after that first test. Since forty plus years later the truth surfaced about how this government lied to us and used us as guinea pigs (minus the $100thousand plus damages paid that crew of the Japanese fishing boat)I'm convinced that test alone was the cause.
In 1996 I no longer could afford private medical coverage and went to the VA to see about getting some type coverage and when the examining doc heard about my experience with radiation he immediately scheduled me for a second physical the following week and lo'n behold, even tho government claims no responsiblity for any possible physical problems, in the same manner they deny Agent Orange problems from Viet Nam or Depleted Uranium problems from Desert Storm and Iraq, they feel beneficially compelled somehow to put me on the "guinea pig" list and if I EVER develop any form of cancer they'll cover it for me. Isn't that nice for our government to be so caring, forty some years after the fact? It took over 40 years before the truth was exposed that the government lied to us about the reason for our receiving fallout; like Pearl Harbor, they knew exactly what was going to happen beforehand and there was no change in wind direction whatsoever. This is what started my distrust of government, fueled further by the other lies exposed over time that usually took years before they were. While I'm on the subject of government lies I want to add (for the benefit of any government snitches reading this) that the secrecy forever paper I signed on the way to Bikini Atoll became null and void as far as I'm concerned when the lies of government were exposed. Articles similar to this page have been published twice in magazines with international readership in the past also, but only after the truth had been exposed, and I'm not locked up, yet. But, that could change tomorrow I know.
Of course we were awed by the sight of that first test of a deliverable H-Bomb and after the resultant excitement from the supposed/claimed miscalculation of it's power, the rest of the tests in comparison were rather anti-climatic. We were later told that first test was at least a third greater in intensity and power than had been thought possible, a force equal to 15,000,000 tons of TNT (15 megatons). This was not the first test of a hydrogen device but it was the first test of a deliverable hydrogen bomb.
To give you an idea of the power involved in those first tests, three days after one test that was set off on a barge anchored at one of the islands, I got to fly over the site in one of the Marine helicopters stationed aboard. The only evidence of that test was a large muddy spot in the ocean, roughtly the size of the island that had disappeared (about 1/4 mile long by100 yards wide), and this was still visible three days after the test!
An example of what radiation can do we saw one evening on the flight deck. A seagull (no idea when or how it got there) trying to fly but it's coordination wasn't working. It was flopping around on the deck about the same as a drunk trying to walk without falling down, with the same confused look on it's face. Being fearful of the radiation no one would get close to it and it eventually went over the side and no one saw what got it after it hit the water, but it disappeared in the instant our eyes were off it.
All the tests were set off around dawn and the detonating device was the only thing that went off on one test (we were told it was about like an atomic bomb), and it just made a small flash on the horizon. Did we really need a weapon like this? I recall talk among ourselves that it would enable us to follow Teddy Roosevelt's philosophy to "Walk softly, but carry a big stick," but I don't recall any real concern for anything other than that we all wished we were home, or at least someplace else.
During the late 1950's and into the early 1960's our truthful government agencies assured us we'd find safety from nuclear attack in basements of buildings, shelters buried shallowly in the earth and other such fantasy sites. At the time I figured, if you believed that you probably got along fine with the tooth fairy also. If the first one could make an island disappear, how hard would it be with today's improved version of the H-Bomb to make a complete city disappear, not just become a huge funeral pyre like Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
What we were doing to the planet's ecology was not a topic of common discussion or concern at that period in time. Of all the ways man has devised to destroy our planet and the life forms on it (polluting the waters, decimation of forests and their ecosystems by clear-cut logging, the many forms of air pollution, the destruction of wetlands, etc.) all in the name of progress and the associated dollars of profit, the H-Bomb is the quickest and most devastating. The first deliverable H-Bomb was like that. What is the modern equivalent of these weapons like?
Here is one other page, not mine, for you to learn more, link
Bikini Atoll today Nowadays the lies of government are readily more apparent, unless you just swallow the government swill as gospel as the majority of brainwashed sheeple/zombies have been conditioned to do in the federally controlled dumb-down institutions.
