Robert Ball sent email about his duty in the MP Detachment.
From: r.ball@comcast.net
To: pdxavets@aracnet.com
Subject: Just touching base !
Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2004
Hi Fellows:
Just a quick note to let you all know that I am still alive and kicking, despite having undergone open heart surgery (two by-passes and a valve replacement ), a bleeding ulcer, and a reconstructed right hand, where the doctor found that all of the bones in the center of the hand had turned balck and were about as weak as an eggshell. The only thing he could attribute it to was fallout that I picked up when I went back ashore after Bravo and drove a jeep around for a number of days.
Am still running a business importing foreign obsolete military weapons, as well as designing and selling a new semi-auto assault rifle fashioned after an H&K 91; this keeps me out of pool halls and away from strange women! Still traveling, and get down to Central and South America on business every so often. Think about the Marshalls every once in a while, and have kept in contact with a few of the fellows.
Keep up the good work, and God Bless !
Bob Ball
Ex-Field First Sgt., MP Det.
Eniwetok
Email:r.ball@comcast.net
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999
From: "Bob Ball" books@attbi.com
Organization: @Home Network
To: pdxavets@aracnet.com
Subject: Operation Castle
Hi! I was the Field First Sergeant of the MP Detachment at Eniwetok
during Operation Castle, and I used to take Dr Teller and Gen. Groves
around when they would come out to the islands. Got to know Dr. Teller
well, and one night, checking the guard posts, I was leaning up against
a large object under guard when Dr. Teller came in and asked: "Son, do
you know what you are leaning against?" in his Hungarian accent;
needless to say, I moved immediately!
When we were gearing up for the beginning of the tests, I was assigned
as NCOIC, Site Nan, at Bikini. We had quite a few men scattered around
the islands of the atoll, and I had about 12 on Nan. When it came time
to evacuate for Bravo, we left everything ashore and left with what we
wore, with the idea that we would be back the next day! After the
blast, the fallout came back over the ships; we had to button up the
ship, turn off the A/C and steam 80 miles to get out of the fall-out.
We had about 200 men in an area about thirty by forty, jammed in
shoulder to shoulder, passing out with no room to fall.
The next day, I was ordered to take 12 men ashore at Site Tare for
security duty, and, when the fall-out came back across the islands, they
forgot we were on Tare! I was able to get the Task Force Commander on
the only working radio and was told they would send an LCI in as soon as
they could (4 hours) and in the meanwhile, hold cardboard, plywood, or
canvas over our heads to ward off the fallout (which you could see as a
fine fall of ash)...finally we were picked up, we were hosed down with water
from the lagoon, of all stupid things, hustled aboard the last ship, and
got out of there as fast as we could. For the rest of our time at
Bikini, we were forbidden to go back ashore as we had blown our
dosimeter badges. Went back to Eniwetok, went thru the rest of the
tests, and finally finished my Army career by getting off of those
islands! Thank God, in my case, nothing happened, but others in the
group started losing their hair, and I later heard that several died
from the exposure.
Hope that the above is of some interest to you; I'm now 70, have written
and had published 10 books, am still working and going around the world
as needed, and having a hell of a good time doing it.
The books I've done are as follows:
- 1. Cowboy Collectibles and Western Memorabilia
- 2. American Shelf and Wall Clocks
- 3. Western Memorabilia and Collectibles
- 4. Nautical Antiques
- 5. Military Medals, Decorations and Orders of US and Europe
- 6. Texaco Collectibles
- 7. Remington Firearms: the Golden Age of Collecting
- 8. Mauser Military Rifles of the World
- 9. British Army Campaign Medals
- 10. Springfield Armory Shoulder Weapons, 1795-1968
Best regards to my fellow Atomic Vets,
Robert (Bob) W.D.Ball
Avon, CT.
Email:books@home.com
Date: Wed, 03 Nov 1999 19:31:43 -0500
From: Robert Ball books@home.com
Organization: @Home Network
To: pdxavets@aracnet.com
Subject: After effects of radiation
Hi Fellows: I initially signed on to this website and stated that, to
my knowledge, I had not suffered from radioactivity, although I
received, along with others, a highly concentrated dose going ashore at
site Tare after Shot Bravo. I now have to wonder about a hand operation
I went through about two years ago.
I went to a hand specialist for a shot of cortizone in my right hand
which had been aching terrifically at the end of every day, at which
point, he said let's take an x-ray before we decide what the treatment
will be. He was very puzzled when he came back with the x-ray, as there
were not only broken bones in the hand, but fairly large black spots,
which he had never seen before in his experience; the decision was made
to operate, fuse the broken bones and find out what the black spots
were; this was supposed to be about an hour on the table, with a very
easy recuperation period, small cast, etc. Well, it turned out that the
black spots were hollow, dead bone, as fragile as an egg shell, all of
which had to be cleaned out, and the resulting mess fused together,
pinned, and, hopefully, turn out to be a workable hand (which it is!
Thank God!), but I was on the table for 3 1/2 hours, came out with a cast
up to my shoulder, and my hand encased in what looked like a bowling
ball, and this stayed on for about 2 1/2 mos. before I could get a
smaller cast which allowed me to drive, much against my MD's opinion.
The point of this note is, he had never, ever seen anything like the
hollow bone in my hand, and I can only guess that maybe it was from
handling a number of hot items on Tare and Nan right after the blast.
In any case, I've recovered about 90% of the use of the hand, and when
the MD told me that the fusion had moved about 1/2" and we should go
back in and do it all over again, you can easily guess what my answer
was!
Anyhow, thank you for the copy of the Wetokian, and I will be in touch
real soon....
Best regards to all,
Bob Ball
Email:books@home.com
Keith Whittle
October 20, 1999.
Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1999
From: Robert Ball books@home.com
Organization: @Home Network
To: Keith pdxavets@aracnet.com
Hi Keith:
At Bikini, I was in charge of Site Nan, and originally we were on Site
Tare until Nan was ready for occupancy; we ate on the Holmes and Narver
mess, and the food was out of this world, with steak three nights a
week, with three lines, "Rare," "Medium" and "Well Done" and the mess
attendants would keep piling the steaks on until you told them to stop!
There were at least six different varieties of prepared potatoes; home
fries, mashed, baked, escalloped, etc, and at least six or seven
vegetables, with rolls, breads, shrimp cocktails, all kinds of fruit
juices, and a dessert menu with a minimum of a dozen different flavors
of ice cream, where you would scoop your own into soup bowls, with every
topping imaginable. We had one fellow, on the heavy side anyway, gain
over 100 pounds while we were at Bikini, and he was afraid to go home to
his wife!
Other memories: I used to send home boxes of the green glass Japanese
fishing floats that would break loose from the fishing nets in Japan, go
up around the Aleutian islands and Alaska, down the West coast of the
US, and back out to Bikini, which was right in their path. I still have
about 5 or 6 of the big ones, for which I wove nets, after being
instructed by some of the Hawaiian mess attendants. I used to pick up
about a dozen of these a day, and would ship them on out.
I used to walk around Nan when not on duty looking for shells, cat's
eyes and cats paws from which to make jewelry, and one day, as I walked
in the water up to my knees on the South end of the island, I was in a
little lagoon, where there was a wrecked Japanese bomber, and all of a
sudden, something told me to turn around and look down. Well, about a
foot and 1 half away were two baby sharks, about 2 feet long, and not
developed, but right behind them was Mom, who measured about seven feet
in length, with about half of her sticking up out of the water! I was
about 15 feet from shore, and carrying a .45; I immediately went up
about 6 feet in the air while pulling out and chambering a round in my
.45...I don't think my feet touched the water on the way in, and I
pumped about 5 shots into the shark, and just watched as the slugs
bounced right off, while she and the babies went nuts tryin to get out
of the lagoon. I don't remember doing that again while I was on Nan!
Another memory: Trying for days to chip the cannon and machine guns out
of the old Jap Renault tanks that were on the ocean side of Eniwetok;
they had been sitting there since the war ended, just rusting away, and
I thought those would be great souvenirs, but I was never able to get
one free!
One more memory for this time: we used to do aerial sweeps of the
atolls, both Eniwetok and Bikini, and once I was in an L-19 light
observation plane at 'wetok, when we blew a generator, managed to get
back over Eniwetok, and then came in for a crash landing, with only the
pilot really knowing what was going on! We came in, tried to flair out,
but never quite made it, with the nose plowing into the coral! On
Bikini, we were making a sweep in one of the old helicopters, I believe
a Huey, when after making a complete ground sweep of the island of
Bikini itself (which was beautiful, just like a park, with the palm
trees in rows like soldiers, and the undergrowth cleaned out between the
trees...the result of the Germans owning the area before the Japs took
over after WWI)twelve of us got back in the copter, got up about 75 -
100 feet, and the rotor froze, so that we flew just like a rock,
crashing into about 6 feet of water and crushing the pontoons up against
the underside of the copter, with about five of the men flying out the
cargo door, one slicing his leg up with a machete...you should have seen
the scramble to get back aboard, what with the sharks in the area! The
pilot managed to effect repairs, and we flew low and slow back to Site
Tare to finish off that day!
Well, Keith, enough for one day, but there is plenty more in the way of
memories tucked away in the old noggin. Will get back to you soon,
Best personal regards, and my best to all of the rest of the members,
Bob Ball
Email:books@home.com
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1999
From: Robert Ball books@home.com
Organization: @Home Network
To: pdxavets@aracnet.com
Subject: 'wetok memories
Hi Keith:
Does anyone else remember the time that some of the men in the Port
Detachment (I think!)who were into fishing, made themselves some large
steel hooks about 1 1/2 feet long, got a 55 gallon drum for a float, and
a side of spoiled beef from the mess and went fishing off the garbage
pier? The first I heard about their catch was when a tow truck pulled
up near HQ area with this huge Jewfish on the trailer hook...it weighed
(estimate) over a ton, and the mouth was so big you could literally
stand in it!
That was when the official photographer came running out with his camera
and took shots of a lot of the men with a little,tiny fishing rod next
to the catch!
One of the interesting, and definitely weird things that happened out at
'wetok was the fact that the M/Sgt. hangman from the ETO (He was
responsible for the hanging of all the war criminals) was stationed
there for the operation prior to Castle, and while on his duties, he was
electrocuted in the reefer building...it was investigated as a murder,
but nothing came out of it. What happened next was that the hangman for
the far East, an SFC by the name of Cliff Ballard, was stationed with
the MP detachment, knew the other fellow real well, and was also
considered for protection against reprisals from Japanese
fanatics...these two were the only men at that time who were given a
sweeping Federal license to carry a firearm with them, anywhere and
anytime, as they were considered prime targets for revenge; I am sure
that Cliff is long gone, but I often thought about him after I got out
of the service.
More later...
Bob Ball
Email:books@attbi.com
[ Operation Castle ]