Operation Ivy in 1952 took the hydrogen bomb from theory to reality, escalating the nuclear arms race to a scale that threatened the entire planet.
To follow up on the H-bomb "successes" of Operation Ivy, a much more ambitious series of tests called Operation Castle was put into effect under Joint Task Force-7. The "Operation Castle JTF Commanders Report," a short film recently declassified by the Department of Energy, exposes a relentless "ends justify the means" attitude towards nuclear testing, with little concern for the consequences. (This film was the source of the images on this page.)
"Castle was by far the most complex and significant operation in the short but impressive history of nuclear testing," Task Force Commander Gen. Clarkson tells us, "and in my opinion, absolutely vital to national security and the security of the free world."
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While all this was going on, the U.S. Air Force conducted tests to determine the "minimum safe distance for aircraft delivering high-yield weapons" -- an important consideration, Gen. Clarkson tells us, "when positioning for multiple drops is considered."
With the stakes so high, and the weapons so incredibly powerful, little concern was spared for the welfare of Marshall Islands inhabitants in the direct vicinity of the Pacific Proving Ground. The U.S. government's disturbing mistreatment of the people of Bikini began during Operation Crossroads in 1946, one year after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
To make way for Operation Crossroads, the Bikinians moved to Rongerik Atoll, which was much smaller and less habitable than Bikini. Within weeks, the Bikinians faced physical starvation as their culture and way of life were torn asunder. They soon begged to return to their island -- but by then, Operation Crossroads was in full force.
The United States knew in 1946 that there would be many more tests at Bikini and the surrounding islands. So in 1947, the Marshall Islands was declared a "United Nations Strategic Trust Territory," to be administered by the United States -- the first and only such Trust ever created by the U.N. Among other duties, the U.S. was obligated to "promote the economic advancement and self-sufficiency of the inhabitants" and to "protect the inhabitants against the loss of their lands and resources."
That same year, reporter Harold Ickes wrote of Bikini's inhabitants, "the natives are actually starving to death." A U.S. medical officer who visited the Bikinians on Rongerik in July 1947 found the islanders suffering from severe malnutrition. Facing embarrassing criticism in the world press, the Navy made plans to transfer the Bikinians to Ujelang Atoll. However, to make room for more atomic tests, the inhabitants of Enewetak Atoll were moved to Ujelang, while the Bikinians continued to wait and starve.
In January 1948, University of Hawaii anthropologist Dr. Leonard Mason was so disturbed after seeing the withering islanders firsthand that he ordered food supplies to be immediately flown in. Two months later, the Bikinians were transported temporarily to Kwajalein Atoll. After six months of deliberations, the Bikinians chose as their new home the uninhabited island of Kili, which had no lagoon or protected harbor. This would cause great difficulty during the unloading of food supplies, and would doom the Bikinians' traditional diet and lifestyle, both of which were based on lagoon fishing, according to the Bikini Atoll Web Site.The United States had clearly failed in its duties to care for the welfare of the people of Bikini and other islands in the "Strategic Trust." But the most flagrant and appalling abuses did not come until Operation Castle in 1954.
On March 1, 1954, a 15 megaton hydrogen bomb -- code named Bravo -- was detonated on Bikini Atoll, producing an intense fireball followed by a 20-mile-high mushroom cloud which sucked millions of tons of sand, water, coral, plants and sea life thousands of feet into the air. The hurricane-force winds generated by the blast stripped the branches and coconuts from Bikini's remaining trees.
As the mushroom cloud began to drift toward Task Force ships monitoring the Bravo test, radiation levels became so high that all hands were ordered below decks and all watertight hatches and doors were sealed. Radioactive fallout spread past these ships and continued toward the inhabited islands near Bikini.
The Joint Task Force film on Operation Castle claimed that the fallout problem arose because weather forecasts before the test were different from the actual wind direction. Furthermore, the film's narrator asserts, the winds were still "in the area of acceptable fallout," but the "unexpected yield" of the Bravo bomb caused the fallout problems.The bomb's actual yield was, in fact, five times higher than the predicted yield of 3 megatons, but the military basically lied about the weather problems. According to a Defense Nuclear Agency report, at 6 p.m. the day before the test, "the predicted winds were less favorable; nevertheless, the decision to shoot was reaffirmed, but with another review of the winds scheduled for midnight." The next day, as Zero Hour rapidly approached, weather conditions were downgraded to "unfavorable."
Knowing that the winds were blowing east toward inhabited islands, the Task Force went ahead with its mission. As the Bikini Atoll Web Site noted, this "was essentially a decision to irradiate the atolls of the northern Marshall Islands, and moreover, to irradiate the people who were still living on them."
The Operation Castle film shows the 82 inhabitants of Rongelap and the 150 inhabitants of Utrik being evacuated, while the narrator describes radiation levels at Utrik as "relatively light." Everyone exposed, according to the narrator, was given a "complete physical examination" and "every effort was made to assure their comfort and well-being."
The narrator's claims are outright lies. Within hours of the Bikini detonation, a snowstorm of fallout began to descend on military weathermen stationed on Rongerik Atoll, as a radioactive mist made its way to Utrik. Two inches of fallout dust fell on Rongelap Atoll, turning the drinking water a brackish yellow color. The islanders, who were given no warning whatsoever from the U.S. government, began to experience severe vomiting and diarrhea and soon fell into a state of panic.
Two days later, Rongelap was evacuated. Utrik was evacuated the following day. By that time, the most heavily exposed islanders began to show skin burns, and hair soon began to fall from their scalps.
Also caught in the deadly trail of Bravo's radioactive fallout were the 23 crew members of the Japanese fishing vessel Lucky Dragon. They were bewildered by the sight of a gritty white ash falling from the sky, having no way of knowing that it was actually nuclear fallout. Within hours, the men began experiencing severe nausea and vomiting, as their hair started to fall out. One of the men died.
On March 3, the Atomic Energy Commission issued a press statement calling Bravo a "routine atomic test," stating that some Americans and Marshall Islands inhabitants were "unexpectedly exposed to some radioactivity. There were no burns. All were reported well."
Four days later, the Atomic Energy Commission established a secret medical group charged with covertly monitoring and evaluating the people of Rongelap and Utrik. The following month, the group issued a memorandum recommending that the inhabitants of Rongelap should have no further radiation exposure for "the rest of their natural lives." Yet in July 1957, Rongelap was declared safe for habitation, despite some "slight lingering radiation." The people of Rongelap returned home, having no knowledge of the medical group's secret findings. Brookhaven National Laboratory scientists reported in July 1957 that "the habitation of these people on the island will afford most valuable ecological radiation data on human beings."
More nuclear weapons tests were conducted on Bikini in the spring of 1954. The Yankee and Union tests contaminated the atolls of Bikar and Ailinginae, and further contaminated Rongelap and Rongerik.
It was not until 1963 that the first thyroid tumors began appearing among Rongelap inhabitants who were exposed to Bravo's deadly fallout. Although nuclear tests at the Pacific Proving Ground ended in 1958, the hardships of the Bikinians and neighboring Marshall Islanders had only just begun, as the long-term health effects of their radiation exposure slowly began to emerge.
See Jack Niedenthal's "A Short History of the People of Bikini Atoll" to learn more; RMI Online's Chronology of Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands provides key information on the events described on this page. See also the Operation Crossroads section of this exhibit for more info.
NEXT: Atomic Damage and Destruction
