RISKY JOURNEY

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 July 1946, Page 5

RISKY JOURNEY

ADMIRAL’S INSPECTION OF " BOMB TEST AREA EXPOSURE TO RADIOACTIVITY BIKINI, July 2.7. Shifting winds and currents have sent radioactivity soaring .in the inner target area at Bikini, hampering salvage operations and delaying attempts to assess the overall damage more thoroughly, reports the Associated Press correspondent aboard the U.S.S. Mount McKinley. Vice-Admiral Blandy has issued no new statement covering the destruction, but reports from Associated Press correspondents who have viewed the target fleet from the sea and the air, show that at least 13 vessels - were sunk or damaged.

List of Naval Losses.

They list the ships as follows: — Sunk.—The battleship Arkansas, the carrier Saratoga, an oil tender, and two or three submarines.

Disintegrated.—The landing ship from which the bomb was suspended.

Listing.—The Japanese battleship Nagato, the battleship New York, one transport, and one destroyer. Beached. —The destroyer Hughes and the transport Fallon. Overturned. —One L.S.T. The condition of several submarines lying on the bottom of the lagoon remains a mystery. Vice-Admiral Blandy and others of the atom test command took a fast, perilous ride through the target fleet, but were able to stay only half an hour in the violently radioactive area. They announced that every member of the party had been exposed to 5 per cent, more rays than was considered safe. At one point the Geiger counter began clicking so fast that the radiological safety officer shouted “full speed” to the helmsman without waiting for the usual chain of commands to get the vessel away. Great Hole in Lagoon.

, A great hole on the bottom of the Bikini Lagoon amazed aerial observers, who also saw a great white air bubble arise, indicating the sinking of a submarine. The water in the lagoon, after the detonation of the underwater atom bomb, was a vivid- green caused by pulverised coral, but it is now marked by a great milky streak and straying oil slicks from sunken ships. There is no sign of the 1500 animals which underwent the test, but it has not been disclosed whether they were left above decks.