Page 10 - Demo

Nuclear Weapons of the Atomic AgeMedal for his clandestine contributions to the Soviet Union%u2019s development of nuclear bombs. Operation CrossroadsThe first two nuclear-weapon tests after the war were designated Operation Crossroads. Both were fission bombs, and they were detonated in the Pacific Ocean at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. The tests involved a massive support fleet of more than 150 ships, with 42,000 men, and 37 female nurses. In addition, there was a fleet of 95 target ships in Bikini%u2019s lagoon. The goal was to measure the damage to the target ships, which were anchored at different distances from the blast center. They included obsolete battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, submarines, auxiliary vessels, and three German and Japanese ships. Most carried samples of fuel and ammunition, plus scientific instruments to measure air pressure, ship movement, and radiation. The first test, Able, was detonated on July 1 at an altitude of 520 feet above the target fleet, and the second, Baker, was detonated on July 25 at a depth of 90 feet underwater. After the Baker blast, radioactive sea spray caused such extensive contamination that a third test was canceled primarily because the Navy couldn%u2019t decontaminate the target ships. In the end, only nine of the target ships could be cleaned up enough to be converted to scrap, and the rest were sunk in the ocean. Because the underwater test resulted in so much radioactive contamination, Glenn T. Seaborg, who later became Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, referred to Baker as \world's first nuclear disaster.\For the Able test, the target ships were loaded with several hundred pigs, guinea pigs, and goats, as well as several thousand rats and mice, plus grains containing insects. The aniU.S. Navy sailors scrubbing radioactive fallout off the deck of the former German cruiser Prinz Eugen after the Baker atomic detonation of Operation Crossroads at Bikini Atoll.mals were to be studied for genetic effects by the National Cancer Institute. Roughly a third of them died or were euthanized in the three months following the explosion. Only pigs and rats were used in the Baker test. They absorbed much more radiation than the animals used in Able, and all died. Humans were also exposed to radiation, but not to the same extent as the test animals. By 1992%u201446 years after the tests%u2014veterans of Operation Crossroads had a 4.6% higher mortality than a control group not exposed to radiation. Overall, their lives were reduced by about three months when compared to nonexposed veterans.Bikini Atoll had been occupied for more than 3,000 years prior to Operation Crossroads, but the population was forcibly evacuated prior to the atomic tests for obvious safety reasons. The atoll was eventually used for 23 nuclear detonations, and is today occasionally visited by divers and scientists. As a result of cleanup activities%u2014and time%u2014plants on the atoll have regrown, the coral reef continues to recover, and the lagoon is