The Atomic Ghost Fleet: The Wrecks Of Operation Crossroads
The first shots of the Cold War were two atomic blasts at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands in 1946, 2500 miles west of Honolulu. The blasts, Able and Baker, were part of a planned, three-detonation test of the atomic bomb. Designated Operation Crossroads, the blasts were to pit the newly-developed bomb against America’s arsenal of ships, submarines, aircraft, weapons, military equipment, and some 5000 test animals to see what could survive an atomic blast.
Under the command of Navy Admiral William H.P. Blandy, Joint Task Force One (JTF-1) assembled a fleet of 242 ships, along with 42,000 military personnel and civilian scientists, and converged on Bikini. Relocating its local population with promises of an eventual return and an appeal to the highly religious Bikinians that the weapons tests were God’s will and would lead to world peace, JTF-1 reshaped Bikini lagoon and surrounding islands. Seabees bulldozed, poured concrete, and erected buildings and towers for cameras and blast gauges. Navy teams blasted coral heads to create a clear part of the lagoon in which ten-ton concrete mooring blocks were set to moor target ships. The ships, according to one account, were moored as “fish in an atomic barrel.”
Operation Crossroads was more than a scientific test of the bomb. It was also a public demonstration by the United States of the power of its new weapon. A large press corps and foreign observers (including Soviets) came to Bikini, as well as a Congressional delegation. The impending tests dominated global attention, coming less than a year after the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The intensity of interest is reflected by the fact that a newly-introduced French bathing suit was named for the islands.
On the morning of July 1, the B-29 “Dave’s Dream,” flying from Kwajalein, dropped the first bomb, codenamed “Gilda,” on the target fleet. The bomb fell off target, missing its aiming point, the veteran battleship USS . It detonated nearly a half mile away from and 520 feet over the attack transport, enveloping the transport and nearby ships in a 6,000-degree fireball that sent heat, shock waves, and radiation across the lagoon. As the cloud lifted, observers in aircraft circling the atoll could see that four ships had sunk– , the attack transport USS , and the destroyers USS and USS . The former Japanese Navy cruiser was sinking, and the aircraft carrier USS was on fire but still afloat. soon sank, burping oil as it settled to the 180-foot-deep lagoon bottom.
