Atmospheric Nuclear Weapons Testing: 1951-1963

By U.S. Department of Energy

Charlie promised to be a "Big Shot," as the press dubbed the nation's twenty-fifth nuclear weapons test. With a projected explosive yield equivalent to thirty-three kilotons of TNT, Charlie would be the largest test conducted to date at the Nevada Proving Ground, formerly-and again to be-the Nevada Test Site. Charlie also was big in the sense that for the first time a nuclear weapons test would be held as an "open" shot that allowed a significant degree of public access. For the first time, as well, ground and airborne troops would conduct military maneuvers on a simulated nuclear battlefield following the shot. By 9:00 a.m. on April 22, 1952, at H-hour minus thirty minutes,* all was ready and in place for Charlie. Hundreds of observers, dignitaries, and reporters, previously banned from the site, had gathered on a small hill newly christened "News Nob," about nine miles south of ground zero, to await the blast. Some were given high-density goggles to view the burst, while others were told to turn away and shield their eyes. At the top of the Nob stood one of four television cameras prepared to broadcast the test to an anticipated audience of millions of viewers nationwide. Special arrangements made by Klaus Landsberg of KTLA, a Los Angeles television station (relatively close-by Las Vegas as yet having none), to provide pictures direct from the site using still primitive technology were, one reporter noted, "almost heroic." To the north of News Nob, some 1,700 soldiers were positioned in five-foot-deep trenches 7,000 yards from ground zero, the closest by nearly half that any observer had ever been to a nuclear test. A thousand yards out, rockets, whose smoke trails would measure blast pressures, stood ready to be launched remotely only seconds before the blast. The B-50 bomber that would deliver the nuclear device, meanwhile, circled in a clockwise orbit at an altitude 30,000 feet above the Yucca Flat target area.1 Surrounding ground zero stood an array of experiments for measuring Charlie's blast, thermal, and radiation effects on a variety of inanimate and animate objects. Trucks and tanks, some 35 parked aircraft, and numerous other pieces of military equipment and ordnance were placed at varying distances out from the detonation point to ascertain how well they would survive a nuclear attack. Effects on a minefield, 15 meters wide and extending out from ground zero to 1,830 meters, would determine the practicality of using nuclear weapons to clear mines. Measurements of motion and strain would be taken on four 50-foot tall coniferous trees anchored in concrete. Pigs, sheep, and mice served as surrogates for humans in various experiments. Anesthetized pigs would be used to measure thermal effects and skin burns. Mice would assist in determining radiation effects. Sheared sheep manned foxholes and trenches, with additional sheep tethered in the open. In one experiment, wood models of dogs were set up to measure blast effects on animals. Real humans, nine miles from ground zero, participated in a "flash then as the device detonated 3,447 feet above the target area a "blinding fl ash of light that turned the desert a chalky white," as a Newsweek reporter described it, and, when the observers yanked their goggles off three seconds later, feeling the heat in their faces, the fl ash became "a whirling ball of fire, kaleidoscoping into purples, yellows, and reds." At the same time, the observers witnessed the shock wave striking at ground zero "destroying, you know, the planes and trucks parked there, if they haven't already been vaporized in the heat."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1463739044
• ISBN13: 9781463739041
• Release Date: September 2006
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 11.0" x 0.6" x 8.5"