Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1946-07-19

top. The trade winds soon broke it up
and it was pushed westward where it
gradually leveled off and dispersed
as our ship steamed slowly along
the seaward side of Bikini island.
We could see the ghost fleet in
the lagoon through our binoculars.
Fire amidship showed on the Sara
toga. The Salt Lake City was
ablaze. There appeared to be a
small fire aboard the Nevada. These
fires made smoke haze over the
lagoon, but it soon cleared away and
as look toward the lagoon now
there is little Indication of a fire
anywhere.
We are changing course now, fol-
lowing the Mt. Mckinley, Admiral
Blandy's flagship, apparently with
the intention Of entering the lagoon.
Television receiving sets in the
ward room of the Appalachian reg
istered the blast from cameras in
stalled on the island, then they went
out of commission.
The carrier independence likely
suffered more damage than any 9TH
er capital ship to its superstruc-
ture and all planes which were atop
its flight deck were carried away.
There was superficial or superstruc-
ture damage to other ships of the
70 in the target fleet but to me the
pathos of the thing was emphasized
when l saw the sturdy masts of the
old Nevada brilliant in its orange
paint, standing there still staunch
and true despite the atomic bomb.
There was no wind, no waves and
no thunderstorm. No trees were
damaged on the island. There was
no tidal wave and no earthquake.
In fairness there was no prediction
from the navy or army officials that
any of these things might happen.
The navy frankly said they didn't
know what would happen. These
wild predictions were made by sci
entists or scientific writer's. Also,
in all fairness to the officers of joint
task force No. the bomb, which
looked so small to the lay writers,
may actually have been big.
Scientifically of course there can
be no adequate judgment of the re-
suits until the instruments have
been read, the damage on the va
rious ships actually determined and
measured. In the light of the OBJ
jectives, the navy and the army had
In mind the actual effect of the
bomb on naval construction, navy
and army material, armament, ord
nance and other equipment.
Admiral Blandy, commander of
the task force, issued a statement
in which he said he was highly
pleased with the whole operation:
with the bomb drop and with the eff
ficiency of the bomb. There are sew
eral aboard the ship who saw the
Nagasaki bomb drop and the drop
at Los Alamos, N. M. They de-
clared this bomb appeared to be
smaller, judging from the flash and
the atomic cloud which in the case
of Nagasaki scared to a height of
about $1,000 feet.
There is no doubt that the force of
this terrible energy is like nothing
ever known on earth before but
the distances out here are so great
that the energy was dispersed and
dissipated over vast area. For
instance, at Nagasaki the area of
total bomb damage was in six
square miles, or an area of about a
mile and a half radius while the
distance of the Nevada from the
shore of Bikini lagoon was about
three miles. And the lagoon itself is
10 miles across and IS miles long.
1t must also be remembered that
as this story is written for trans
mission in time to get it to you
there has been no actual assessment
of the real damage. There may be
more as we enter the lagoon and can
usually assay the damage.