Nuclear Testing, Bikini Island
date: label: Date made
content: 1946
name: label: photographer
content: Mydans, Carl
notes: label: Description
content: Months after the conclusion of the Second World War, President Harry S. Truman issued a directive to Army and Navy officials that joint testing of nuclear weapons would be necessary "to determine the effect of atomic bombs on American warships." Because of its location away from regular air and sea routes, Bikini was chosen to be the new nuclear proving ground for the U.S. government.
label: Description
content: No one really knew what would happen to Bikini after the atomic testing was completed. The one thing that officials did know was that little would remain on the island. A bomb similar to that used against Nagasaki would explode several hundred feet over a "ghost fleet" of 97 ships anchored in a small lagoon of Bikini Island. Mydans was sent to the island to document the exodus of the people of Bikini. The story was published by <i>LIFE</i> (Mar 25, 1946).
label: Description
content: Over the next eleven years, American soldiers participated in 23 tests at Bikini, during which hundreds of bombs were detonated. On March 1, 1954, the military released its largest bomb to date, a hydrogen bomb called Bravo. This blast was seen as one of the worst incidents of fallout exposures in all the U.S. testing programs.
label: Description
content: The image shows an explosion in shallow water while native onlookers sit on boats still on shore.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: Marshall Islands: Bikini & Kili, Bikini Atoll
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Photographic History
label: See more items in
content: Photography
label: See more items in
content: Carl Mydans
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2005.0228.093
label: accession number
content: 2005.0228
label: catalog number
content: 2005.0228.093
objectType: label: Object Name
content: photograph
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 10 in x 8 in; 25.4 cm x 20.32 cm