kite official pictorial record V OPERATION CROSSROADS The Official Pictorial Record The Office of the Historian Joint Task Force One 1946 Wm. H. Wise g Co., Inc. New York Copyright, 1946 Wm. H. Wise & Co., Inc. Credits: All photographs are Joint Task Force One pho- tographs except as follows: Acme: Pages 16, 40, 93, 95, 103, 122 Press Association: Pages 22, 137, 173,214 International News: Pages 25,31,38,39,41,51, 66, 1 40, 157, 158 (lower), 161, 169, 206 Life Magazine: Pages 67, 80-81, 86, 87, 94. 123, 174 Fritz Goro of Life Magazine: Pages 34, 35, 53, 59, 88, 90, 91, 97, 98, 99, 108. 158, 159, 160, 161, 171 (lower), 201 Printed in the U.S.A. A Message from the Commander Joint Task Force One THIS pictorial record of Operation CROSSROADS must be dedicated to the 42,000 men—civilians and servicemen, who made the gigantic experiment possible. It is the record of a job well done. It is a record which makes impressively clear the extent of the preparations made over a period of months. The variety of activities constituting Joint Task Force ONE is also evident. The Operation called for a multitude of skills and talents. And from every man it demanded hard work. All this is apparent from the record. From the standpoint of the general public, Operation CROSSROADS constitutes a further example of the type of cooperation between the services—the Navy, Army Air Forces, Army Ground Forces, and civilian scientists and technicians, to which the people of the United States became accustomed during the recent war. page 6 For obvious reasons these photographs no more than hint at the tremendous amount of data obtained concerning the effect of the bombs upon ships and material. They necessarily slight the technical and scientific lessons learned at Bikini. They do, however, evidence an incontestable truth. The Atomic Age is here. It is no myth. Nor is the atomic bomb "just another weapon." It is the most lethal destructive agent yet devised by man. Its energy release is staggering; its radioactivity is slow killing poison. The purpose of these tests was to determine the effect of the atom bomb against various types of naval vessels. With the information secured, we can improve our ship design, tactics, and strategy, to minimize our losses in the unfortunate event of war waged with atomic weapons. A reliable and continuously effective plan to avoid com- petition in atomic armaments is the best possible defense against surprise attacks. With such a plan, atomic energy can in time become the controlled slave of man's peacetime pursuits. In the face of this new knowledge, these recently discovered truths concerning the atom, so suddenly thrust upon an already chaotic world, not only warfare but civi- lization itself literally stands at the Crossroads. Hence the name of this operation. *, + *m^ /^5^X ^-j Foreword NO MAN really saw what happened at Bikini. Previous Bombs Approximately 42,000 persons, drawn from nRIOR to July 1946 three atomic bombs had the four corners of the globe, travelled thousands been detonated—one above the New Mexico of miles to stage and witness the tests. But an desert, two more above the Japanese cities of atomic bomb defies scrutiny. It shuns publicity. Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For an already weaken- It shields its intense life-span in a flash of light ing Japan these bombs spelled defeat. The bomb- many times the brilliance of the sun. It dazzles ing of Hiroshima, on August 5, 1945 (Greenwich human eyes. It limits its life to a matter of mil- Mean Time) constituted the first military use of lionths of a second. It enshrouds itself in a cloud. the bomb. Nagasaki was hit on August 9 (G.M.T.). And then it dies, mushrooming grotesquely to On August 14, only nine days after Hiroshima, high altitudes as if for a better view of the havoc Japan surrendered unconditionally. it has produced. Now it could be told . the "best-kept secret Even if pent up beneath the surface of a la- of the war," the story of secret research in the goon it resists observation. Where before it field of nuclear physics, the successful tapping of blinded the eye here it succeeds in blinding the the tremendous energy of the atom, the mass mind. In a matter of seconds it tosses up a column production of materials to make use of this energy of tons of water higher than the Empire State in the form of a bomb. The perplexing language Building. It sinks ships in a moment and crushes of science dominated the columns of the daily others into the deformed, stepped-on shape of a press. Laymen throughout the United States child's bath-tub toy. Itself the result of man's in- scratched their heads and attempted to under- tellect, the bomb defies examination by its creator. stand. And yet the Bikini tests were thoroughly ob- One thing was clear. The bomb constituted a served. Supplementing human onlookers were revolution in pre-existing concepts of tactics and 10,000 instruments, and among them cameras, strategy. The tremendous striking power of the constructed to record what the human eye could single, unaccompanied bomber over Japan, taken never see. Cameras are inquisitive instruments to be a reconnaissance weather plane by those on with long memories. In the field of atomic re- the ground, was retold with each succeeding bul- search they are indeed star witnesses. Their story letin describing the doomed cities. But just how may appear differently to the scientist and the much of a revolution did the bomb represer layman. But all may grasp its general significance. one knew the answer to that question. For those who attended the tests these photo- Trinity Test graphs may serve as the lasting momento of <i unique experience. For those who did not they It was true that Bomb Number One, the first should serve to provide perspective concerning atomic bomb ever detonated by man, had been the atomic bomb, and give better knowledge of exploded "under laboratory conditions." l r one of the largest scale ventures in experiment the so-called Trinity Test, conducted in the great, ever attempted by man. This foreword has been roofless laboratory of the New Mexico desert near written with that end in view, and to place Opera- Alamogordo on July 16. 1945. Th«- tion CROSSROADS properly in the history of had been observed by scientists, military oh the bomb. and by hastily-set up instruments. Bi.- page mentation was meagre. The test was carried out and a second detonation in the water, slightly be- during wartime with emphasis on secrecy and the low the surface. rapid development of a bomb for use in bringing Two tests were necessary. The air and subsur- to an end a war that had already cost the lives face bursts constituted quite different test situa- of millions. Alamogordo represented a proving tions. This difference can be quickly told. When ground, not an elaborately instrumented experi- exploded in air at low altitude, as in Test "Able," ment. As a source of scientific data concerning an atomic bomb subjects everything in its vicinity the bomb it left much to be desired. to violent air-blast and intense radioactivity. Much The subsequent uses of the bomb at Hiroshima of the radioactivity is dissipated into the upper and Nagasaki were carried out under combat con- atmosphere in the so-called "mushroom cloud." ditions. They, too, were of little significance from Ships subjected to the bomb were expected to re- a technical point of view. They did provide data ceive, and did receive a severe air blast or con- concerning the effect of the bomb on a city of cussion. Crews on the test ships, had there been the Japanese type; but this data was entirely in any, would undoubtedly have suffered many cas- the form of rough estimates proving little. ualties from the lethal radioactivity. Test "Baker," the underwater shot, utilized the Bomb vs Ships bomb's tremendous energy release in a different way. The huge pressure built the bomb TO many this question arose: What ettect would up by an atomic bomb have on a fleet of naval ves- under the water was transmitted to the under- water portions ships. Ship sels? Much thought had been given to this ques- of the neighboring tion during the development phases of the bomb. hulls were by this pressure forced inward on all As early as 1944 the Manhattan Engineer District, sides at once. Furthermore, since the bomb was charged with development of the bomb, had given submerged in the lagoon, its radioactivity was serious consideration to the possibility of "testing" prevented from passing instantly into the upper lasting radioactivity was one of its atomic bombs against the Japanese atmosphere. Intense and ships, Navy at Trulc Island. And just after the surrender produced in the water of the lagoon. The of Japan Senator Brien McMahon of Connecticut drenched by tons of water thrown up by the ex- made a speech in the Senate in which he advo- plosion, became similarly contaminated. The ex- cated the use of the atomic bomb against the tent of such contamination proved a matter of captured Japanese fleet. great interest. Speculation on this subject followed diverse Bikini lines. What amount and type of damage would THE Bikini Atoll, a typical Pacific Ocean island the bombs produce in the first instance? To what group in the Marshalls, was chosen as the site extent should accepted principles of ship design of the test.