[CPEO-MEF] VETERANS, RADIATION, PRESERVATION: 1946 A-bomb testing

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Vet recalls 1946 atomic bomb tests

He says it was 'the awfulest thing'

By FRANK MUNGER
Knoxville News Sentinel (TN)
September 29, 2008

CLINTON, Tenn. — When Ray Beatty turned 17 in July 1945, he was ready to 
go to war. He'd been ready for a while.

His older brother, a B-24 pilot, was shot down on his fifth mission over 
Hamburg, Germany, and spent nine months in a German POW camp. A favorite 
cousin had been a prisoner for most of the war after being captured by 
the Japanese at Corregidor.

But he was too late for World War II. By the time he joined the Navy and 
was trained, it was 1946 and the war was over. Instead of going to war, 
Beatty went to the Marshall Islands. There he met up with an adversary 
that was neither Japanese nor German but would hound him for life — 
radiation.

He was part of Operation Crossroads, the U.S. military's first postwar 
experiment with nuclear weapons. The fourth and fifth atomic detonations 
in history, test shots Able and Baker, took place at Bikini Atoll in the 
summer of 1946.

Now 80 years old, the Clinton resident remembers it well.

No safety gear issued

The USS Saratoga made its first stop at Pearl Harbor.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080929/NEWS01/809290373/1006

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org


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