Last week we left Bill Wilmoth heading off to Bikini Atoll to be a Guinea pig for the atomic bomb tests. In his own words...
Arriving at our anchorage several weeks later, we watched as all of
the target ships were placed in their positions.
The USS Nevada was to be the target ship and
was painted a reddish-orange (red lead) and could be seen for at least five
miles on a clear day.
When the day came
for test Able (first shot) we had been moved at least five or six miles outside
the lagoon where we rode at anchor waiting for the Air Force’s B-29 to drop the
bomb.
Test Able was an aerial burst
creating a kind of upward smoke ring.
Each ring expanded upwards and outwards from the other.
Thousands of feet in the air a pinkish cloud
formed and a white ice cap topped it off.
Beautiful but deadly!
We had no
idea of how far the fallout would carry.
The officers and scientists were given special glasses to watch the
explosion, while the crewmen were given a piece of brown beer bottle glass to
look through over one eye and were told to hold your hand over the other
eye.
Hell, it was like looking at an X-ray.
You could see every bone in your hand.
Weird!
The second test, “Baker” was pretty
much the same except it was an underwater blast. Quite a number of the thin-skinned ships,
transports, destroyers, etc., were sunk, while larger ships received fairly
heavy damage. What one blast didn’t
destroy, the other one did.
I remember that after the second
blast, the USS Skate, one of the old diesel subs got underway with a full crew
aboard. She passed by the flag ship, USS
Mt. McKinley so the Admiral could view the damage done during the blast. The outer shell had been completely carried
away but she operated well. One thing
though, we had found out that every ship was hot with radiation. Some more than others.
After the second blast, I transferred to the USS Bowditch (AG-30)
survey ship, because she would be returning to the east coast.
What I didn’t find out till two days after I
was aboard was that she would still be in anchorage in Bikini for another 60 to
80 days.
Finally we got underway and
made our first port-of-call at Hunter’s Point in San Francisco Bay.
We were so
hot with radiation that we
were denied the pleasure of tying up to the pier like everyone else.
No liberty was granted!
Next we headed south and through the Panama
Canal.
Then our next bit of bad
luck.
Our one and only screw (propeller)
fell off.
There we were, sitting around
for a couple of weeks waiting for a tow up to Norfolk, Virginia where we would
await decommissioning and the breaker’s torch.
However, the minute we tied up to the pier, I was transferred to the Norfolk
Naval Hospital.
My tonsils needed to be
removed, now!
A week later, on a Friday,
I returned to the ship looking forward to a 72 hour pass.
I started to go up to Richmond (the state
capitol) and as I passed the USO, I noticed these little bumps on my arm.
I went into the USO and asked if there
happened to be a nurse handy.
There
was!
She informed me that I had
chickenpox and that I’d better return to the ship, which I did.
Standing on the pier, I shouted up to the
deck watch and told him of my problem.
I
was told, “Do not move!
We’ll pack your
sea bag and get the yeoman to type you a set of orders to Portsmouth Naval
Hospital.”
Well, two more weeks of lousy
hospital food and I was released to the world.
Look out world, here I come!
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