ATOM TESTS IN PACIFIC

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26887, 13 November 1952, Page 9

ATOM TESTS IN PACIFIC

STRICT SECURITY PRECAUTIONS

(Rec. 10 p.m.) HONOLULU. Nov. 12. Tight security measures shroud the activities of the current United States atomic tests in the South Pacific . Major-General P. W. Clarkson, who is assigned to conduct the tests, is away from his headquarters, but Army spokesmen decline to say when he left, where he is. or when he will return.

General Clarkson, Deputy Commander of the United States Army in the Pacific, is commander of the Joint Atomic Task Force No. 12. Scientists have been flying in and out of Pearl Harbour recently, but they have refused to give any information.

Another account of the alleged hydrogen bomb explosion off Kwajaiein in the Marshall Islands on November 1 has been published in the Michigan City (Indiana) “News Dispatch” in the form of a letter from an unidentified sailor. The United States Atomic Energy Commission said today it would make an announcement on the new tests at Eniwetok as soon as they were completed.

The letter published in the “News Dispatch" said that sailors on the ship took on a heavily guarded bomb in San Francisco and transported it to Gest Island. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents guarded the bomb on the voyage and the door of the compartment in which it was kept was welded shut with big chains welded across it.

The sailor commented that there were more civilian and security men aboard his ship that Navy men. The crew were not allowed to send mail for several days before the blast. “We are anchored in the bav jus* off Kwajaiein. The bomb went off at 7.15 a.m. our time on November 1,” said the letter. “I didn’t seen the actual blast—l was standing with my eyes shut and mv face pushed into my arms and still I saw the flash. Ten seconds later we turned around. I can’t begin to describe it. Orange and red clouds shot about half-way up the mushroom: It blew the top off a building 18 miles away. There was such an updraught that it took about two minutes for the sound of the explosion to reach us. There were three distinct blasts.” Another unidentified serviceman, in a letter published by the “Desert News and Telegram” (Salt Lake City) stated: “Actually it was beautiful but when you think of the damage it can do it’s ugly. In those last few minutes, especially when they were counting off the seconds, we ail grew real tense and the silence was so perfect you could hear a pin drop. In that last second I said a silent prayer.”