From the Archives: 75 years later fallout from Bikini A-Bomb blasts remains

Seventy-five years ago this month a joint U.S Army-Navy task force staged two atomic weapons tests at Bikini atoll in the Marshall Islands.

Named Operation Crossroads, the tests were first atomic explosions since the bombings of Japan in August 1945. About 42,000 military personnel and civilian scientists took part in the tests. Herbert G. Klein, who later became editor of The San Diego Union, was among the members of the press invited to witness the blasts.

U.S. nuclear testing ended in the Marshall Islands in 1958, but the effects of the tests are long-lasting.

And after a 1985 study by the General Accounting Office found that many of the sailors who took part in the Operations Crossroads test may have been exposed to higher levels of radiation than previously disclosed, Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which offers offers an apology and payments to individuals who had developed certain types of cancer as a result of U.S. atomic tests or from work in the uranium industry. The act is set to expire next year.

Bikini Atoll is still uninhabitable.

From The San Diego Union, Monday, July 1, 1946:

Flaming Cloud Awe-Inspiring

By Herbert G. Klein, Copley Press Staff Correspondent

BIKINI ATOLL, July 1—(Monday) (By Navy Radio)—Combine the three greatest fires in history with an explosion that would rock several counties, and add several phenomena never before added duplicated at sea and you have a fleeting glimpse of the blast which atomized Bikini.

We have re-entered the target lagoon after watching the bomb explode from 18 miles away, but the picture that remains uppermost in our minds is that of the amazing mushroom cloud which shot fire more than 30,000 feet into the sky. We can see the result here, with some ships sunk and with damage spread from the carrier Saratoga on the north edge of the fleet to the Prinz Eugen on the south side.

The damage is less than we had expected. Although the Nevada still remains afloat there is little doubt that the bomb was near the target. Sips on all sides of her show extreme damage.

Debris is scattered over the decks. Planes have been thrown into the sea and superstructures are twisted on ships near her. Most smokestacks are stove in.

The two things correspondents—who are not experts—had regarded as most certain did not happen. They thought the Nevada would sink and palms would be smashed on Bikini. Trees still remain with full green plumage even near the blast.

The slowest 30 seconds of my life were those between the time when “bomb away” was called and when I was informed of the explosion by the blinding flash that penetrated my dark glasses. The expected heat wave was slight by the time it had crossed the sea to us.

I had expected a deafening roar, but it did not come. I ad given up hearing anything, when the sound reached us more than a minute later. It sounded like a triple peal of thunder.

Great billowy clouds of gas and fire provided an unduplicated phenomena. In the few seconds it took to remove my goggles, after the flash, the cloud had risen several hundred feet and already was foaming.

The mushroom top was a seething mass of white interspersed with orange flames. It seemed to spiral as it surged upward at the rate of several hundred feet a minute and spread out over an increasingly wide area.

Clouds obscured part of the radio-active column temporarily, but within 10 minutes it had risen 25,000 feet, with fire still spurting from its spiraling sides and from the mushroom top.

Shaped like a giant chimney, it was leaning sharply by then, and within 15 minutes it appeared top-heavy and determinedly defiant of the laws of gravity.

Even when clouds hid the column, there was no doubt where it was because of the dull glare from the volcanic fire. The sea seemed many colors--from deathly gray to bright blue, depending on where the reflection from the explosion hit it.

Our ship was one of the first to move close to the island again, and as we approached we could see cumbersome navy mariners circling the area to test for radioactivity.

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