Ghost Fleet: The Sunken Ships of Bikini Atoll 21 - The History and Archaeology of the Atomic Bomb's

All ships in the lagoon are encrusted with bizarre coral growth and seem to have their own marine ecosystems. Unlike the fleets of Truk and Palau, only a small amount of hard and soft corals have managed to make homes of these hulks, leaving artifacts conveniently intact for divers to see. However, on all hulls, props, guns and other large extensions are forests of long whip corals surrounded by millions of glassfish. Some ships, such as the beautiful submarine USS Apogon, are entirely engulfed in glassfish clouds that move like mystic fog, creating an apt atmosphere for these ghost ships.

Ghost Fleet: The Sunken Ships of Bikini Atoll 21

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A support fleet of more than 150 ships provided quarters, experimental stations, and workshops for most of the 42,000 men (more than 37,000 of whom were Navy personnel) and the 37 female nurses.[39] Additional personnel were located on nearby atolls such as Eniwetok and Kwajalein. Navy personnel were allowed to extend their service obligation for one year if they wanted to participate in the tests and see an atomic bomb explode.[40] The islands of the Bikini Atoll were used as instrumentation sites and, until Baker contaminated them, as recreation sites.[41]

Before the first test, all personnel were evacuated from the target fleet and Bikini Atoll. They boarded ships of the support fleet, which took safe positions at least 10 nautical miles (19 km) east of the atoll. Test personnel were issued special dark glasses to protect their eyes, but a decision was made shortly before Able that the glasses might not be adequate. Personnel were instructed to turn away from the blast, shut their eyes, and cradle their arm across their face for additional protection. A few observers who disregarded the recommended precautions advised the others when the bomb detonated. Most shipboard observers reported feeling a slight concussion and hearing a disappointing little "poom".[40]

Testing program staff originally set test Charlie for early 1947. They wanted to explode it deep under the surface in the lee of the atoll to test the effect of nuclear weapons as depth charges on unmoored ships.[40] The unanticipated delays in decontaminating the target ships after test Baker[24] prevented the required technical support personnel from assisting with Charlie and also meant that there were no uncontaminated target ships available for use in Charlie. The naval weapons program staff decided the test was less pressing given that the entire U.S. arsenal had only a handful of nuclear weapons and canceled the test. The official reason given for canceling Charlie was that the program staff felt it was unnecessary due to the success of the Able and Baker tests.[160] The deep ocean effects testing that Charlie was to have performed were fulfilled nine years later with Operation Wigwam.[161]

The brief attempt to resettle Bikini from 1974 until 1978 was aborted when health problems from radioactivity in the food supply caused the atoll to be evacuated again. Sport divers who visit Bikini to dive on the shipwrecks must eat imported food. The local government elected to close the fly-in fly-out sports diving operation in Bikini lagoon in 2008,[179] and the 2009 diving season was canceled due to fuel costs, unreliable airline service to the island, and a decline in the Bikini Islanders' trust fund which subsidized the operation.[32] After a successful trial in October 2010, the local government licensed a sole provider of dive expeditions on the nuclear ghost fleet at Bikini Atoll starting in 2011. The aircraft carrier Saratoga is the primary attraction of a struggling, high-end sport diving industry.[33]

In the early 1900's the Japanese began to administer the Marshall Islands. This domination later resulted in a military build up throughout the islands in anticipation of World War II. Bikini and the rest of these peaceful, low lying coral atolls in the Marshalls suddenly became strategic. The Bikini islanders' life of harmony drew to an abrupt close when the Japanese decided to build and maintain a watchtower on their island to guard against an American invasion of the Marshalls. Throughout the conflict the Bikini station served as an outpost for the Japanese military headquarters in the Marshall Islands, Kwajalein Atoll.In February of 1944, toward the end of the war, in a gruesome and terrifying bloody battle, the American forces captured Kwajalein Atoll and thereby effectively crushed the Japanese hold on the Marshall Islands. The five Japanese men left on Bikini, while hiding in a covered foxhole, killed themselves with a grenade before the American military forces could capture them.After the war, in December of 1945, President Harry S. Truman issued a directive to Army and Navy officials that joint testing of nuclear weapons would be necessary "to determine the effect of atomic bombs on American warships." Bikini, because of its location away from regular air and sea routes, was chosen to be the new nuclear proving ground for the United States government.In February of 1946 Commodore Ben H. Wyatt, the military governor of the Marshalls, traveled to Bikini. On a Sunday after church, he assembled the Bikinians to ask if they would be willing to leave their atoll temporarily so that the United States could begin testing atomic bombs for "the good of mankind and to end all world wars." King Juda, then the leader of the Bikinian people, stood up after much confused and sorrowful deliberation among his people, and announced, "We will go believing that everything is in the hands of God."While the 167 Bikinians were getting ready for their exodus, preparations for the U.S. nuclear testing program advanced rapidly. Some 242 naval ships, 156 aircraft, 25,000 radiation recording devices and the Navy's 5,400 experimental rats, goats and pigs soon began to arrive for the tests. Over 42,000 U.S. military and civilian personnel were involved in the testing program at Bikini.The nuclear legacy of the Bikinians began in March of 1946 when they were first removed from their islands in preparation for Operation Crossroads. The history of the Bikinian people from that day has been a story of their struggle to understand scientific concepts as they relate to their islands, as well as the day-to-day problems of finding food, raising families and maintaining their culture amidst the progression of events set in motion by the Cold War that have been for the most part out of their control.In preparation for Operation Crossroads, the Bikinians were sent 125 miles eastward across the ocean on a U.S. Navy LST landing craft to Rongerik Atoll. The islands of Rongerik Atoll were uninhabited because, traditionally, the Marshallese people considered them to be unlivable due to their size (Rongerik is 1/6 the size of Bikini Atoll) and because they had an inadequate water and food supply. There was also a deep-rooted traditional belief that the atoll was inhabited by evil spirits. The Administration left the Bikinians food stores sufficient only for several weeks. The islanders soon discovered that the coconut trees and other local food crops produced very few fruits when compared to the yield of the trees on Bikini. As the food supply on Rongerik quickly ran out, the Bikinians began to suffer from starvation and fish poisoning due to the lack of edible fish in the lagoon. Within two months after their arrival they began to beg U.S. officials to move them back to Bikini.In July, the Bikinian leader, Juda, traveled with a U.S. government delegation back to Bikini to view the results of the second atom bomb test of Operation Crossroads, code named Baker. Juda returned to Rongerik and told his people that the island was still intact, that the trees were still there, that Bikini looked the same.

In March of 1948, after two unpleasant years on Rongerik, the Bikinians were transported to Kwajalein Atoll where they were housed in tents on a strip of grass beside the massive cement airstrip used by the U.S. military. The Bikinians fell into yet another debate among themselves about alternative locations soon after they settled on Kwajalein [photo, right].It was in June of 1948 that the Bikinians chose Kili Island in the southern Marshalls because the island was not ruled by a paramount king, or iroij, and was uninhabited. This choice ultimately doomed their traditional diet and lifestyle, which were both based on lagoon fishing.In September of 1948, two dozen Bikinian men were chosen from among themselves to accompany 8 Seabees to Kili to begin the clearing of land and the construction of a housing area for the rest of the people who remained on Kwajalein.In November of 1948, after six months on Kwajalein Atoll, the 184 Bikinians set sail once again. This time the destination was Kili Island, their third community relocation in two years.Starvation also troubled the Bikinians on Kili; this situation led the Trust Territory administration to donate a 40-foot ship to be used for copra transportation between Kili and Jaluit Atoll. Later, in 1951, the boat was washed into the Kili reef by heavy surf and sunk while carrying a full-load of copra. In the following years rough seas and infrequent visits by the field trip ships caused food supplies to run critically low many times on the island and once even required an airdrop of emergency food rations.While the islanders struggled to set up their new community on Kili, the beautiful atoll of Bikini was in the process of being irradiated. In the northern Marshalls in January of 1954, the Air Force and Army men arrived on the Bikinians' former, temporary home of Rongerik Atoll, and jointly set up a weather station to monitor conditions in preparation for Operation Castle. This was a series of tests that would include the first air-deliverable, and the most powerful hydrogen bomb ever detonated by the United States. The U.S. government was operating with the fear that the Russians had already detonated their own hydrogen bomb in 1952. Now, decisions concerning the U.S. testing program were being made at the highest levels of the government. The cold war burned with vigor in the minds of paranoid politicians the world over.The weather station on Rongerik began regular observations to determine barometric conditions, temperature, and the velocity of the wind up to 100,000 feet above sea level. As the test date for the Bravo shot grew near, the men at the weather station performed many observations per day. They were checking surface wind direction and barometric conditions hourly and upper-level conditions every two hours. As the test date neared, late in the month of February, documented proof exists that Joint Task Force-7 knew that the winds were blowing east from Bikini toward Rongerik Atoll and other inhabited islands because of the continuous reports coming in from their weather station.Indeed, according to a Defense Nuclear Agency report on the Bravo blast, the weather briefing the day before the detonation stated that there would be "no significant fallout...for the populated Marshalls." The briefing at 6 p.m., however, stated that "the predicted winds were less favorable; nevertheless, the decision to shoot was reaffirmed, but with another review of the winds scheduled for midnight." The midnight briefing "indicated less favorable winds at 10,000 to 25,000-foot levels." Winds at 20,000 feet "were headed for Rongelap to the east," and "it was recognized that both Bikini and Eneman islands would probably be contaminated." 2ff7e9595c