ASSESSMENT DELAYED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26216, 29 July 1946, Page 6

ASSESSMENT DELAYED

DAMAGE FROM ATOM BOMB STRONG RADIO ACTIVITY (Rec. 9.30 p.m.) BIKINI, July 27. Shifting winds and currents sent radio-activity soaring in the inner target area, hampering salvage operations and delaying attempts to assess the over-all damage more thoroughly, reports the Associated Press correspondent aboard the Mount McKinley. Admiral W. H. Blandy has not issued any statement covering the destruction, but reports from correspondents who saw the fleet from the sea and the air showed that at least 13 vessels were sunk or damaged. Those sunk include the battleship Arkansas, the carrier Saratoga, an oil tender and two or three submarines. The Japanese battleship Nagato, the battleship New York, one transport and one destroyer were listing. The destroyer Hughes and the the transport Fallon were beached, and one L.S.T. was overturned. The condition of several submarines lying on the bottom of the lagoon remains a mystery. Admiral Blandy and others of the atom test high command took a fast and perilous ride through the target fleet but were able to stay only half an hour in the violently radio-active area. They announced that every member of tile party was exposed to five per cent, more rays than was considerd 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. Admiral Blandy said that men on the decks of every one of the 75 target ships would probably have died from the radioactive effects even though the ships might not have been damaged. The radiological officer revealed that three patrol boats became so contaminated that the crfews had to quit work. He believed that none suffered but that there were some close calls' Radio-activity was particularly noticeable in barnacles, seaweed and rust on the ships’t bottoms. After working frantically, tug boats beached the transport Fallon, which was damaged and listing after the explosion. The Fallon’s tdpside was battered and torn, probably by a - ' tremendous mass of solid water falling from the sky.