#operation crossroads

[destroyer-of-monsters]

Gojira: The Ruler of Odo Island who became a God

[stone-cold-groove]

Commemorative envelope cover. Operation Crossroads - 1946.

[lonestarbattleship]

USS SARATOGA (CV-3) sinking after Test Baker, the second atomic bomb test, of Operation Crossroads in the Bikini Atol. The background radiation was too high and had not dissipated enough for personnel to board to stop the flooding.

In the background is NEW YORK (BB-34) to the right, two Sims-class destroyers on the left.

Photographed on July 25, 1946.

NARA: 146763032, 520999

U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command: SC 259372

Photo from Navsource: link

[rauko]

The Gadget | First Atomic Bomb Prototype | 07.16.45

Finally over the horizon on nuclear fission weapon technology, the U.S. government could have put the same amount of time & energy testing nuclear fusion reactors—achieving a surplus of electricity for every American. Instead, it dropped a plasma ball hotter than the sun on a civilian populace of two hundred thousand humans—twice.

[nelc]

The German cruiser Prinz Eugen at Kwajalein Atoll, where she was towed after being atom-bombed at Bikini Atoll.

[spockvarietyhour]

Victim of operation crossroads, the heavy cruiser U.S.S. Pensacola with super-structure damaged is shown in Bikini lagoon after the atom bomb blast. 1946

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Mushroom-shaped cloud and water column from the underwater explosion Baker nuclear explosion of July 25, 1946. Photo taken from a tower on Bikini Island. 

[nuclear-breakdown]

Operation Crossroads: Castle Bravo

After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the U.S. government knew it needed to test more nuclear weapons. They wanted to know what they had created. With the Cold War slowly ramping up in the background, the Manhattan Project and U.S. Military began a series of tests.

               In the Marshall Islands, right by a populated Bikini Atoll, multiple nuclear tests occurred. Some were many times more powerful than the ones dropped on Japan. The goal, according to BikiniAtoll.info, “…was an attempt to better understand the effect of atomic weapons on naval targets.” To do this, “Between 1946 and 1958, there were 23 nuclear devices detonated at various spots on, within, above, or beneath Bikini Atoll.” At least 100 Indigenous peoples lived on the island. Because of these tests, evacuations were ordered. The high rates of cancer among the native population is more than likely a result of radiation exposure.

               The most shocking of the detonations was Castle: Bravo. Those working in the Manhattan Project estimated the explosive power to be a few megatons. Certainly a lot, but nowhere near the 15 megatons that ended up detonating.

               How could such a mistake occur? The bomb detonated at unthinkable levels, causing more contamination than ever estimated. What could possibly be the reason? The answer was in one of the products, tritium. The scientists apart of the test did not account for one thing. From The National Interest, “Cascading neutrons transformed the lithium-7 isotope—that comprised most of the “dry fuel”—into tritium and helium. Tritium causes extremely energetic fusion. It was the thermonuclear equivalent of throwing gasoline on a small blaze and producing an instant conflagration.” Fusion is what makes nuclear weapons go off, so the fact that it was energized to such an unthinkable degree caused a massive explosion, the largest the United States ever produced.

               A Japanese fishing vessel, translated into English as “The Lucky Dragon No.5,” was at the outskirts of the exclusion zone for the bomb. Due to the bomb being so much more powerful than ever thought, the radius was not enough to stop the Lucky Dragon from being overrun with contaminants. Radioactive ash fell upon the ship. All of the men on board became ill. One lost his life.