Castle Bravo

Unlike the people of Utirik and Rongelap, however, the 401 people of Ailuk, south of Utirik in the eastern Marshalls, were not evacuated at all.

Based on the initial reading of 20 roentgens, the U.S. task force should have evacuated the people of Ailuk.

it was decided not to evacuate the atoll

presented documents to support their contention that by ignoring forecasts about the weather patterns at the time of the Bravo shot

There have been reports that the device was exploded despite an adverse meteorological forecast.

It is strange that no formal investigation was ever conducted.

It has not been explained why an evacuation capability was not standing by, as had been recommended

Dr. Victor Bond, a member of the medical team sent from the United States to treat the exposed population immediately after the accident, said in an interview with Advisory Committee staff that "initial statements by Washington officials underplayed the severity of the effects of the exposure."

A change in wind direction carried fallout from the test toward Rongelap and other inhabited atolls downwind of it.

The populations of the Rongelap and Utirik Atolls were evacuated, but not until after they had received serious radiation exposure (about 200 roentgens on Rongelap and about 20 on Utirik).

Over the next three days, 236 Marshallese were transported by sea and 28 U.S. servicemen were airlifted from a weather station on Rongerik to Kwajelain Atoll, south of the fallout pattern, and then to a U.S. naval base with medical facilities.

The Bravo shot was detonated on Bikini at 6:45 a.m. on March 1, 1954. Its yield was substantially greater than expected.

On March 6, the task force command approved a request by the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project to establish a joint study of the “response of human beings exposed to significant gamma and beta radiation due to high yield weapons.”

The objective of this project is to study the response of human beings in the Marshall Islands who have received significant doses due to the fall-out from first detonation of Operation Castle.

Due to possible adverse public reaction, you will specifically instruct all personnel in this project to be particularly careful not to discuss the purpose of this project and its background or its findings with any except those who have a specific 'need to know.'

A 100-ton Japanese fishing vessel with a crew of twenty-three called the Fukuryu Maru (Lucky Dragon) was sailing some eighty miles from Bikini when the bomb exploded.

Within days, crew members suffered from acute radiation sickness.

Thyroid abnormalities, in addition to the one fatal case of leukemia, have been the most significant late effect of radiation among the Marshallese.

about 90 percent of the children and 30 percent of the adults lost hair

it has been found that there is as much thyroid cancer at Utirik as at Rongelap--3 cases each

Bravo was the second test of a thermonuclear (hydrogen) bomb, with a yield of 15 megatons, a thousand times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb.

I have just returned from the Pacific proving Grounds of the Atomic Energy Commission where I witnessed the second part of a test series of thermonuclear weapons.

First, that the yield was about double that of the calculated estimate -- a margin of error not incompatible with a totally new weapon.

The wind failed to follow the predictions but shifted south of that line and the little islands of Rongelap, Rongerik, and Uterik were in the path of the fall-out.

based on a statement attributed to her skipper, to the effect that he saw the flash of the explosion and heard the concussion six minutes later, it must have been well within the danger area

The Task Force Commander promptly evacuated all the people from

natives also appeared to me to be well and happy

incident involving the fall-out on inhabited areas was actually a planned

characterize it as utterly false, irresponsible, and gravely unjust to the men engaged in this patriotic service.

We detected the test of an atomic weapon, or device, by the Russians in August of 1949.

Realizing that our leadership was therefore challenged

outside of the established danger area, the Atolls of Rongelap and Utirik, inhabited by Marshallese, and Rongerik, temporarily occupied by American Weather Personnel, were contaminated by radioactive fall-out because of an unexpected shift in wind conditions.

the Commander, Joint Task Force Seven, ordered these Marshallese and United States Weather Personnel evacuated temporarily to Kwajalein Atoll

the unexpected falling of radioactive materials caused by a shift in the wind during the March 1 test

We understand that there is some evidence that U.S. officials received, but neglected to act upon, warnings before the Bravo shot that wind patterns were changing and might send fallout in the direction of these inhabited islands.

The fireball was the explosion of Bravo, the largest hydrogen bomb tested by the United States at the Bikini Atoll.

the lethal effects of which have already touched the inhabitants of two of the atolls in the Marshalls, namely, Rongelap and Uterik, who are now suffering in various degrees from ‘lowering of blood count,’ burns, nausea and the falling off of hair from the head

The fall-out that our bodies were exposed to caused the blisters and other sores we experienced over the weeks that followed. Many of us lost our hair, too.

We remained on Rongelap for two and one-half days after the fall-out came.

I cannot have children. I have had miscarriages on seven occasions. On one of those occasions, I miscarried after four months. The child I miscarried was severely deformed; it had only one eye.

I have also had thyroid surgery to remove nodules.

We began to learn about leukaemia for the first time when the body of Lekoj Anjain, a 15-year old boy who had been strong and healthy, was return to Rongelap in a coffin.