On July 22, 2016, the U.S. National Security Archives declassified and released all the footage shot by Task Force One, the Army Air Force scientific photographic unit as it flew over Bikini Atoll just moments after the Able test detonation (1:00-4:30) went off.
The same unedited film footage also depicts four shots of the Baker test from different ranges (5:44, 8:56, 11:28, and 14:10), showing the formation of the nuclear cloud past the height of other clouds in the sky. The end of the film, (15:40) shows a roiling cauldron at the bottom of what was once a beautiful coral bay.
The damage appears to be complete. Only five ships sank, but those left floating were extensively damaged, and the viewer can see the huge oil slicks contaminating the environment from ships that had suffered damage to their infrastructure. But U.S. scientists weren’t prepared for what the tests ultimately revealed.
A question emerges: Who has the bigger bombs?
Recently declassified documents reveal that the Soviet Union and U.S. were already in a war-of-words even in 1946. The emergence of the cold war atmosphere is quite evident in an exchange with Simon Peter Alexandrov, one of the observers of the Operations Crossroads tests.
Alexandrov, in charge of uranium for the Soviet nuclear project allegedly told one of the U.S. scientists that the purpose of the Bikini test was “to frighten the Soviets,” but they were “not afraid,” and that the Soviet Union had “wonderful planes” which could easily bomb U.S. cities.
Operation Crossroads – Test Able
The two Bikini tests were carried out in the immediate aftermath of the end of WWII with Japan. The U.S. Navy was worried about how the U.S. fleet of warships would hold up during an “atomic war.” The tests were conducted under the leadership of Rear Admiral William Blandy. A fleet of 96 warships — many of them captured German and Japanese warships — were used, including the aircraft carrier USS Independence.
In early March 1946, 167 Bikini islanders were sent from their ancestral home to an island further away from the site, leaving the people with the impression they would be able to return. This proved to be untrue, because even today, Bikini Island is uninhabitable.
Just four month’s later, on 1 July 1946, The first test, Able, took place. Test Able was supposed to be the first of 67 tests in the atoll and the second nuclear test of over 1,000 that would follow.
The fission bomb was almost identical to the one dropped on Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. The 23 kiloton device exploded 160 meters (525 feet) above the ocean surface. It sank a few small ships and the radiation that had been high aboard the remaining, damaged ships, quickly dissipated within days.
Operation Crossroads – Test Baker
While the Test Able detonation should have been enough to scare the pants off most observers, it was the Test Baker detonation that terrified observers. This bomb was set off 30 meters (95 feet) below the surface of the atoll on July 25, 1946,
The explosion hurled a monstrous dome of water vapor across the surface of the ocean and a shock wave of such force that it literally hammered the fleet of ships moored close by into destruction. Two heavily armored battleships and an aircraft carrier, along with five other ships were sunk that day.
But the real surprise, believe it or not, was the radiation contamination. It seems that no one was prepared for the extent and magnitude of the radioactivity released. Literally mountains of water, soil, and debris had been dumped on everything, the islands, the ocean and the remaining ships.
The resulting radiation soon developed into a crisis for the Navy. Sailors had been sent to the area to decontaminate and do salvage work on the ships. Now, they were all exposed to the radiation. The task force radiation advisor sent a quick note to Admiral Blandy warning him that the ships “were extensively contaminated with excessive amounts of radiation.”
The warning went on to say that it was not possible to achieve “quick decontamination without exposing personnel to serious radiation.” Sadly, it took the Admiral quite a while to halt the decontamination activities, and by that time many sailors and civilian personnel had been exposed to deadly doses of radiation.
There will be no discussion of “What did we learn,” but instead, let’s allow the observers a chance to voice their feelings from 70 years ago. The Los Alamos Laboratory, on the planned underground Test Baker said, “There will probably be enough plutonium near the surface to poison the combined armed forces of the U.S. at their combined wartime strength.”
The Joint Chiefs of Staff noted in a memo sent after the Baker test, “the contaminated ships became radioactive stoves, and would have burned all living things aboard with invisible but painless radiation.”
The painless death may not have been accurate because 200 pigs placed aboard the ships all died within a month after the detonation of Test Baker. All the ships had to be sunk because of the high levels of radiation. It could be said that the level of fallout was just not expected.
The Journal of Maritime Archaeology devoted an entire issue to the collection of documents and pictures from the Operation Crossroads tests. This sums up the times most clearly: a comment taken from a then-classified report on the Bikini tests, suggested that, with the coming of the ‘Bomb,’ it was possible to depopulate the earth, leaving only ‘vestigial remnants of man’s works.’
