Ingram Chronicle
Vol. 3 No. 4
Time for a further addition to the Chronicle. This is a long story that I felt needed to be told to all of you. I was asked about being an Atomic Veteran—one of those exposed to the products of atmospheric atomic and thermonuclear bomb testing while on official duty by Adrian Groggett, who is now a part-time faculty member in Welding Technology at AWC.
To get with the story….
While I was serving in the USS Sioux (ATF-75), we were attached to a US Navy Task Group for Operation Castle in the areas surrounding the atolls of Eniwetak and Bikini in the Central Pacific.
I was selected to be the courier for the ship, and had to be checked by the FBI for my background (criminal connections, etc.). Some of the neighbors in Lisbon, and teachers were interviewed, to determine whether or not I would be responsible and safe to carry "Top Secret" documents and other secure mails between the Sioux and other points, as if I would be able to convey these items any where else—there were no other places to transfer them to any "enemy" while on station with the Sioux. The neighbors and teachers contacted Mom after their interviews and asked what kind of trouble I might be in, as they only thought of the FBI as crime-fighters!
We had to have all cameras, binoculars, and any other optical devices surrendered to the ship for securing during the time on the Pacific Test Station surrounding the atolls. Thus, I have no personal pictures of the locations or events that took place.
I was sent to a Radiological Safety (Class "B") School at the Naval Receiving Station, San Diego, for two weeks to learn the latest on radiological safety. I was designated as the "Radiological Safety Petty Officer (RSPO)" by the Captain of the Sioux, and had to train several other PO's in the necessary "care and feeding" of our various devices for measuring our exposure to radiation.
The Sioux was rigged with fire-hoses and fog applicator wands, as a jury-rigging for the planned atomic fall-out wash-down system. These devices could spray seawater over the ship's topsides, from high on the mast to the water-line, to provide a means of removing any sediment or other material that might be produced by the proposed nuclear devices and explosive events.
We sailed from San Diego around the first of May 1954, to the test area through Pearl Harbor to Eniwetak Atoll. The Operation Castle was scheduled for some 13 weeks and about 14 nuclear events. During the voyage, we picked up a group of oceanographic scientists from the Scripps Oceanographic Institute at La Jolla, California. We would provide the necessary support to their efforts to collect information on the extent, amount, and nature of the "fall-out" from the test explosions. We were provided with a World War II Radio Direction Finder unit for helping to locate sampling buoys deployed before each test event, each buoy was intended to trap any materials from the event. We would also take samples at various depths in the ocean through lowering a string of "Nansen flasks" on a wire line, to a depth of about 1000 feet, I think, not to 1000 fathoms—I don't think that little wire was nearly that long! We would rig about ten flasks at distances of 100 feet, deploy the string and drop a messenger weight down the line to trip the flasks at their depths. We would then retrieve the flasks, empty the water into sterile bottles, seal each with wax, and on returning to the lagoon at Eniwetak, send them off by air to San Diego and La Jolla.
As we were cruising away from "Ground Zero" for each test event, we would sail about 40 nautical miles to windward with the rest of the Task Group, and take station well away from the scheduled event. After the test had been fired, the other ships of the Task Group would sail further away from the test site, while the Sioux would sail back past the test location, to collect samples down wind from the test event site. I would set the radiological safety (RadSafe) Watch as we entered the area of fall-out, to collect the samples as requested by the scientists. I always had the first watch, and would patrol the ship until the radiation level became strong enough that I would start the rotation with the other PO's through the period of exposure, limited to periods of about 30 minutes at a time. As each of us come inboard from our patrol duty, we immediately went through our decontamination routine. We would strip off all clothes, including head covers and socks, place them in the ship's washing machine to be washed twice, and take a fast series of showers and checks for any contamination in our hair and extremities, repeating the wash-down until the test instruments showed us to be free of all contamination. During these operations, we had to have a small, select, crew on deck at times to collect the buoys as we located them and for streaming the Nansen Flask lines. Then, the crowd became a mess at the showers, since all that crew had been exposed to some fall-out! When the level of contamination reached a significant level, the Captain would order the wash-down system activated, to flush as much as possible of it over the side. After the very first try of the system, I made a survey of the top-sides with the radiation detection device, and to the dismay of all, found that the radiation level was actually higher than before the wash-down. I suggested to the Captain that the ship's fire pumps were drawing their feed water from the near surface layer of the ocean, and therefore, that layer would be heavily contaminated with the fall-out under the mushroom cloud. I suggested that we would have to sail some distance across the wind, into waters not exposed to the fall-out, in order to use "normal" seawater for the wash down. The Captain agreed and had the course changed. Sure enough, when I took readings over the bows of the Sioux, as we steamed away from the area of sampling, the level of radiation fell to very low—indicating that the ship was beyond the fall-out zone. Then, the flush down system did reduce the amount of radiation present on the ship to well below that observed under the fall-out cloud!
As we were on station away from "Ground Zero" awaiting the initiation of each event, a necessary few of our ship’s crew were allowed to be top-side at the time of the test, but to be careful to keep our backs toward the event site, facing forward, to avoid exposure to the very bright flash of the device as it exploded. We were instructed to cover our eyes with the palms of our hands, that no light would be visible to our eyes. I remember that several times, as the flash struck the ship, I was able to make out the bones in my hands, so bright was the light, reflecting off the battleship gray paint on the after bulkhead of the deckhouse of the ship!
One of our chores, as we were taking the Nansen Flask samples by the wire line, required someone to take a surface sample, by lowering a bucket on a line into the water, and retrieving it quickly. On one sampling effort, I had the line running over my wrist, and just as the bucket struck the water, it jerked the line through my hands and tore my watch off my wrist and over the side. I asked the senior scientist about replacing it, but he said that was a common failure in oceanographic sampling procedures, and such losses were to be expected—so no replacement of the watch from that source!
The Radio-Direction-Finder unit was only partly successful, since the little radios on the buoys were not very strong sources, we had to be quite close to hear them, and the lookouts would often spot the buoy before the navigator could hear it on the radio. Our electronics was nearly state-of-the-art, but still well below that required for the task at hand. So we mainly relied on good eyes to spot the buoys as we sought them after each shot!
After we had returned to the Navy Yard at San Diego, for the Sioux to be thoroughly cleansed of all residual contamination, the radiation badges of those crew whose duties had required their exposure, were sent to the Naval Radiation laboratory for processing and their readings reported to the ship. It turned out that I had a higher reading than the Captain, by a few percent. He asked me how I had been derelict in exposing myself more than he had been exposed. My answer was that I had been doing my duty in seeing that the other members of the crew were not exposed unnecessarily, that I had only been doing my duty, that my exposure was totally due to that responsibility. He then made an entry into my personnel record of his recognition of my effort in protecting my crewmates.
While the USS Sioux was still in the Yard, I was transferred to the Naval Receiving Station, San Diego, for processing for discharge from the Navy, as I was near the end of my enlistment. While at the NavRecSta, I was subjected to many hard sell attempts to get me to re-enlist—but I'd had enough sea duty, and wanted some solid land under my feet for a time. Besides, I would be eligible for the Korean War Veterans Bill of Rights—separation payments and four years of college at the expense of the Federal Government (Veterans Administration).
Thus, I was exposed to about 3 REM of radiation at this time, and as yet, have not seen any adverse effects—although I have said that I have had six beneficial mutations, the six bright children your mother and I have produced!