The Evening Star (July 25, 1946)
Nine ships sunk by underwater atom bomb blast
7 lesser vessels go down with Arkansas and Saratoga
By Howard Blakeslee, Associated Press science writer
ABOARD USS APPALACHIAN, Bikini Lagoon (AP) – The first underwater atomic bomb, exploding with an awesome roar that thundered upward into a beautiful cloudy geyser, destroyed the battleship USS Arkansas and sank the huge old aircraft carrier USS Saratoga and seven lesser vessels today.
Associated Press correspondent Don Whitehead, in the best position to view the blast from a B-29, said it was so powerful that the Arkansas was shoved far out of her original anchorage just before she plunged and other target vessels near the center of the fleet of 75 were tossed about like toys.
First to go in the mighty plutonium blast that was the second chapter of the Army-Navy “Operations Crossroads” was the old 26,100-ton battleship Arkansas. She and two small craft, a yard oiler and a tank-landing ship, simply disappeared in the pink-fringed mist at 8:35 a.m. (4:35 p.m. EST yesterday).
Seven hours and 32 minutes later, the 33,000-ton Saratoga, war-torn old carrier, settled protestingly to the bottom of the Bikini lagoon.
Extent of damage unknown
A little later five submarines of the six that had been submerged in the lagoon were found to be resting on the bottom. Whether they were crushed or had sunk through some defects in their air lines was not known.
Probably the most powerful man-made force ever loosed – perhaps even stronger than the bomb that razed most of Nagasaki last August – the atomic bomb did not immediately sink as many of the 75 target vessels as observers had expected.
The true extent of the damage is still unknown, however. Ships still were “hot” with radioactivity many hours later. Navy men and scientists edged ever closer and reentered the lagoon with sensitive instruments, trying to determine the danger and ascertain the full damage as soon as possible.
The radioactivity was so great that two tugs which went to the rescue of the Saratoga, under orders from the Task Force Commander, Vice Adm. W. H. P. Blandy, to try to beach her, had to turn back and let the gallant old lady die alone.
New York, Nagato listing
The battleship New York and the Japanese battleship Nagato were listing, evidently damaged, as were the battered carrier Independence, the destroyer Hughes, the transport Fallon and the heavy cruiser Pensacola.
A reef and 10 miles of blue Pacific separated this ship from the target fleet when the bomb went off. Observers had their glasses on the mast of a small landing craft that was above the submerged atom bomb.
A voice on the ship’s loudspeaker droned off the seconds and the world’s fifth atomic bomb was set off by remote radio controls.
An almost incredibly white dome of water rose where the slim mast had stood. It glowed momentarily. Then it spread, at first wide and flat, to perhaps half a mile in breadth. Suddenly it shot upward with lightning speed.
At the top of the dome, the water spread in a great wide column with a rounded top. In two seconds, the top widened like a grotesque mushroom, whose thick stem by that time was nearly a half-mile wide at the base, which in turn was boiling upward.
The air mushroom spread out to more than a mile wide. All this time the entire display was dazzling white.
Waves spread out
Then from the widening edges of the mushroom umbrella pure white streaming down toward the ships. Many of these sprays were far larger than any of the big battleships.
At this moment must have been occurring one of the almost incredible phenomena of atomic energy. Water thrown against the Saratoga crushed her massive stack, knocking half of it to the flight deck.
A series of waves spread from the spot where the bomb was detonated. They raced out toward the ships outside the lagoon and some poured over a small island off Bikini’s shore. The main island was not inundated. Adm. Blandy estimated the wave was seven to 10 feet high at Bikini Island – lower than had been expected.
Ships rocked. The hot force of the bomb’s concussion was felt by some observers outside the lagoon. Parts of target ships’ equipment, mattresses and the like, undulated on the waves.
Slowly the mist began to clear. Some of the target ships became visible again.
Effort to beach Saratoga fails
Men who had expected many of the ships to be gone were amazed to see them floating where they last had seen them.
But all efforts to find the Arkansas, a concrete yard oiler, a tank landing ship and the medium landing ship over the bomb, were futile. They simply had disappeared.
The supporting ships began moving toward the lagoon.
Hours later a plane reported that the Saratoga was going down. Adm. Blandy, boss of the Crossroads Operation, sent tugs into the lagoon to try to beach her, but in vain. A destroyer had raced into the lagoon and out again earlier.
Elton C. Fay, Associated Press reporter aboard the flagship Mt. McKinley, said patrol teams later entered the lagoon in gunboats and transferred to launches. They were seen skirting the edges of the array.
Less than nine hours after the explosion, this ship entered the lagoon, but anchored some distance from the targets.
Some ships now safe
Col. Stafford Warren, the radiological safety chief, said half a dozen target ships on the outer rim of the array were free of contamination when patrol teams got there.
He said it might be several days before the ships near the center of the fleet could be boarded safely.
The colonel said a rain of death dealing fission particles came down in the lagoon immediately after the millions of tons of lagoon water skyrocketed upward.
Later, clouds along a 30-mile front became contaminated with fissionable products. This cloud bank drifted to the northwest. It was tracked by airplanes.
Col. Warren pointed out that rain from clouds of this nature could be deadly.
