Updated for Fathers' Day, 2012. Thanks, Dad. Glad you're still hale, 57 years after they did this to you.
Imagine starting your day out in the desert in a personnel carrier, getting atom-bombed in the AM, then mustard-gassed in the PM, while a guy with a chimp broadcasts it on TV. That's what happened to my dad on May 5th, 1955, when he was an Army sergeant, and 21 years old. He is what they call an "Atomic Veteran."
Remember those films of what happens to buildings and mannequins in a nuclear blast? That's the 29-kiloton A-bomb my dad experienced. He mentions what he saw of "Survival Town" in Area 1 immediately after the Operation Teapot Apple-2 test shot. Some of that footage was used in the 1983 flick, The Day After.
You've all seen it, many times, but not first-hand.
"If anything was closer, it simply was no longer there." —Dad
What follows includes excerpts from an oral history obtained by my niece.
"Surprised to see how close we were going to be . . ."
Dad (at left, near his armored carrier) said the test had been scheduled for late April, but winds delayed it for about 10 days. It happened instead the day my big brother turned one. Mom was back home in Wisconsin with him, watching the dawn blast broadcast on NBC.
We were transported in armored personnel carriers, 10 soldiers to a unit, to the test site. We were supposed to be in battle formation, facing the blast.
We had all of our range-finding equipment taken away from us, binoculars, gauges, etc. None of us had been through this kind of testing before, and were surprised to see how close we were going to be to the actual detonation. I guessed that we were only about 1 ½ miles from what was to be ground zero. Close enough to see [. . .] the tower that held the bomb and the cables that supported it.
Everyone was given the option to back out and go several miles away, stationed behind a hill. Dad didn't say who, if anyone, decided to back out.
Every opening and crack on the carrier was taped and sealed shut. The prisms around the top were covered so no light could get in. All of the men were in their battle gear and had steel helmets on. We had been instructed to sit on the floor, with our heads between our knees, facing the blast. We had protective goggles on and were told to cover our eyes with our hands.
"You thought it couldn't get any louder . . ."
So at dawn, 05:10, local time, another, smaller sun ignited in Area 1. Dad said that, despite their sealing job, the goggles and his hands over his eyes, it was bright as day inside his carrier. He said he could see the shadows of his bones projected through his closed eyelids.
Then we heard the noise, rumbling and getting louder as it came, like a freight train.
"You thought it couldn't get any louder," he told me a year ago, "Then `KABOOM!' The noise was indescribable." (image of the Apple-2 bomb at right)
When it hit, [ . . . ] we were jolted forward. Our helmets flew off of our heads toward the front of the carrier [and] the metal heat-deflecting panels that covered the double engines inside were torn loose from their brackets and came down on us. Fortunately they were made of aluminum and not very heavy and none of the men were hurt.
"And, Jesus Christ, we were part of the mushroom cloud."
Since I was the squad leader, I had been given special orders to follow after the concussion blast had passed. I was to count, 1001, 1002, 1003, and then throw open the top hatch of the carrier and look out at the blast site.
Dad expected to see the mushroom cloud in front of him but craned his head around and saw the shelf of the mushroom's cap rolling out behind them. "Jesus Christ, we were part of the mushroom cloud. Deep inside it." (At left, spectators witness the blast from a distance of 6 miles)
All around me, I saw the desert was on fire, every plant was burning. The yucca trees were like torches sticking out of the sand and rocks. The insignias identifying our company, painted on our armored carrier, had been scorched off — there was gray ash in place of paint. It was strangely quiet. It was always quiet in the desert, but you never realized how many little animals lived there until they were all dead.
"They marched us back to Ground Zero."
Out of some kind of military half-logic, Dad and his men had to advance toward Ground Zero and secure a hill to the left of it. On the way, they passed Survival Town.
We passed through a small town that had been built for the test. There were samples of every type of construction, wood, brick, steel, and concrete. I saw houses, stores, even a Standard Oil station. Not much was left standing. There also had been samples of every kind of weaponry, tanks, jeeps, trucks, guns and heavy equipment. Everything was scorched (left), torn apart, tumbled and rolled for yards. I saw one tank that had been pushed sideways by the blast, for maybe 100 yards digging it deep into the ground. This was all about 1/4 of a mile from ground zero. If anything was closer, it simply was no longer there.
Dad's atom bomb was eight kilotons more powerful than Nagasaki's "
Fat Man" and about twice as powerful as the
bomb that devastated Hiroshima. Certainly timing, placement and cloud cover made a big difference in the damage those two bombs did, (the smaller bomb was more lethal), and the damage taught us our first lesson about blast radius and damage. Here's a fairly standard diagram based on the Japanese explosions (right). Knowing this, the army situated Dad and his squad basically on the fringe of the "total destruction" area, where blast, thermal and fire damage messed up everything.
Dad said that he hadn't heard of the more gruesome Hiroshima results until years after his own experience, by the way.
They marched us back to Ground Zero. [In narrowing circles around the spot, he told me] We passed by it, 15 feet away from what was left of the 500-foot steel beam tower. All that was left were four steel beams that looked like they had been cut off with a welder's settling torch, 8 feet above the ground, with molten metal dribbling down the sides. We had been told not to touch anything, especially nothing metal.
Area 1 sometime in the 1990s
The AEC was waiting for us at Ground Zero. They had set up their site, and were dressed in white coveralls. Each of us stood as one man ran over us with a radiation counter and took readings. Then another used a broom to brush us off, and the first man would retake the radiation reading. They repeated this around 4 or 5 times until, I assumed, the radiation reading was lowered to their satisfaction. We were told later that we had been subjected to a "#3" rating of radiation, if it had been over "#5" we would not have to go through any more atomic testing while we were in the service.
Welcome Home, Atomic Heroes!
After they were all broomed off, they got into rubber suits and drove back west to their base at Fort Erwin. At some point during the trip, Dad said, they would be subject to a mustard gas attack, so they had to wear the rubberized suits, masks, hoods and gloves the whole time, until some chemically treated tape on their vehicles changed color.
Most of my company considered this the worst part of the day's events, since the inside temperature of the carrier was over 100 degrees, and here we were wearing rubber suits. The heat was unbearable. Only one soldier had side effects from the gas it self, some how his hand had been exposed and his skin was blistered from it.
When he got off the troop train at Fort Hood a while later, there was a brass band and a banner welcoming the "Atomic Heroes" home. He mustered out a month after that and never really talked to anyone in his company again. It wasn't until years later that
news about the cancers began to circulate.
Dad didn't much care, and still doesn't, about being used as a guinea pig. Knock on wood, he has never had cancer and his family seems to have some kind of natural longevity. He does get priority care from the VA because of his status, but when I checked the records, there really are none. He has no film badge data archived, nor any other data. That is a whole other story.
If you don't mind feeling a bit pissed off, read this preamble to an Atomic Vet activist website.
What so proudly we'd hailed . . .
So, that's the story of how my dad got bombed. It was embedded in my childhood, along with reports of fallout from the USSR, the nuclear trefoils posted on my church and school, each with cans of survival crackers in their basements. And Reagan's saber-rattling, which was enough to cause me nightmares of looking out the window and seeing war's fiery birthmark on the western horizon. I would wake up mourning the end.
Did you? Do you still?