Operation Redwing
US Atomic Veterans
Mike Barrier
Mike Barrier sent email about his duty at Operation Redwing.
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2004
From: " Mike Barrier" barrier@gorge.net
To: pdxavets@aracnet.com
Subject: Operation Redwing
After graduation from UCLA in 1955, where I was in the NROTC, I reported to
my first active duty as a new, 22 year old ensign on the USS Badoeng Strait
(CVE-116). I was assigned to the Gunnery/Deck Department as the First
Division Officer. My immediate superior was the First Lieutenant, LTJG
Richard (Red Dog) Van Kirk, a Naval Academy graduate who had served
previously as a fighter pilot, flying F4Us in Korea. He was a wild and
interesting character and a great drinking buddy! Largely due to his
stories and those of other aviators stationed aboard the "Bing Ding", I put
in for flight training, took the physical and psychological tests across the
San Francisco Bay at NAS Alameda, and received orders to report to Pensacola
upon completion of Operation Redwing, the ship's next mission. I was sort
of hoping to get orders to flight school sooner and avoid the nuclear tests,
which had gotten quite a bit of unfavorable attention in the press, but now
I'm glad to have had the experience.)
When I joined the ship, she had just returned to San Diego from WESPAC and
the crew members had great stories and photos of Japan, Thailand and Hong
Kong. The Captain was Joseph A. Jaap, and he and about half of the people
from the recent WESPAC remained aboard for Operation Redwing, in the spring
and summer of 1956. Shortly after I reported aboard, in the fall of 1955,
the "Bing Ding" went into the shipyard at Hunter's Point, San Francisco, for
fairly extensive modifications to enable her to provide support for the
nuclear testing operation in the Marshall Islands. We were there during the
Christmas holidays.
Because I had studied film production at UCLA, I was temporarily reassigned
as Officer in Charge of AFTS Bing Ding, which was to be a temporary Armed
Forces TV station to entertain and inform the military and civilian
personnel in the Bikini area during the nuclear tests. While in the
shipyard, one of the air conditioned ready rooms on the small aircraft
carrier was modified to become the studio of the world's only floating Armed
Forces Television Station. In those pre-videotape days, re-broadcasting of
live television programs and recorded TV series programs were filmed on 16
mm film. A contractor called Dage Electronics, in Michigan City, Indiana,
designed a system for installation on the ship consisting of two
horizontally opposed 16 mm projectors directed through a double periscope
type lens into a TV camera for broadcasting to all sets within range of our
transmission antenna, which was mounted high on the ship's mast. We also
had a separate TV camera with which we could produce live news and other
shows. A couple of ET1s were assigned to maintain and operate the equipment
a junior petty officer from the Air Division was assigned to help with the
programming and delivery and return of crates of filmed TV shows through the
Armed Forces Television network, and another ensign, only a few numbers my
junior, was my assistant and primary newscaster.
I will never forget the first "shot" we witnessed during the series of
hydrogen bomb tests. The people who were not on watch sat on the flight
deck with their backs toward the point in front of the ship where the blast
was to occur, with their eyes closed and their faces buried in their arms.
I was on watch on the bridge as Junior Officer of the Deck, and was issued
dark goggles, like welder's goggles; they were so dark that if you looked at
the sun, it would just be a dim spot. In addition to the goggles, we were
instructed to close our eyes and put our hands over our eyes. At about 0400
in the morning, well before sunrise, the scheduled countdown was given over
the speaker system, like for space flights the following generation. I'm
sure I was not alone in experiencing anxiety during those final moments that
early May morning. At "zero", it suddenly felt as if I were lying on a hot
beach, and even with the extremely dark goggles and with my hands over my
closed eyes, I could see the outlines of the bones in my fingers through my
eyelids. After a few long seconds, the announcement came that those on
watch with protective goggles could open their eyes. Through the lenses
that you couldn't normally see through, it was as bright as day, and the
classic mushroom cloud was huge, even from thirty miles away, with its stem
filling up about 15 to 20 degrees of the horizon, and the upper part filling
a large part of the sky. The rays of the soon to rise sun were hitting the
upper parts of the cloud, which looked sort of like a thundercloud, and the
colors were spectacular and seemed to be pulsating, sort of like neon lights
There was no sound, just a perceptible shudder throughout the ship when
the shock wave reached us after traveling the thirty miles, like pounding
one time in a heavy sea. The brightness slowly died down as the light of
dawn began to replace it.
There were several subsequent "shots" over the next couple of months, and
the experience was pretty much the same each time, but not quite as dramatic
as that first experience. I recall that before and after the first few
tests, we were still allowed to swim in the Bikini lagoon, but toward the
end of the operation entering the water was stopped due to higher
radioactivity. Although fishing was allowed, we were not allowed to eat
anything caught from the very beginning, as I remember. I was very active
in scuba diving as much of the time as I could, and was really eager to go
home that last few weeks thet we were no longer allowed in the water.
Playing baseball, pitching horseshoes, collecting shells and drinking beer
on liberty were the only alternatives ashore on the beach. A WWII type
landing craft was the liberty boat. It would make regular runs between the
ship and the little motu, or small islet of the atoll, named Ebye, I think.
There were palm frond covered, open air "clubs": an enlisted mens' club, an
officers' club, and the "Stars and Eagles" club, for senior officers and
visiting VIPs. There were also baseball diamonds and horseshoe pits. And,
of course, the beach!
In the junior officer living spaces on the Bing Ding, I shared a room with
five other ensigns. There were three sets of double bunks, upper and lower.
Willy Snell, who made LTJG during the cruise, was the "bull ensign", a year
ahead of the rest of us, and the only one who had been on the WESPAC, the
previous cruise that visited so many exciting places that we only heard
about. The others were Ensigns Joe Myers from Louisville,Kentucky; Jim
Knight, who did the nightly newscast on AFTS Bing Ding; Kelley (I think his
first name was Don, and I later heard he married the daughter of the ship's
crusty old Bos'n, CWO4 Stepanovich.); and Jim Sater. Jim Sater and I were
both from Los Angeles, graduated from near-to-each-other high schools at
the same time, in 1951, and then graduated in 1955 from college, he from
Stanford and I from UCLA, where we both were in the NROTC. We became good
friends, and maintained contact many years after we got out of the Navy.
Before leaving San Diego, knowing that we would be spending a lot of time in
a divers' paradise, Jim Sater and I heard somewhere that a Chief Petty
Officer Hazelwood, a "frogman"instructor at the nearby Amphibious Base,
could get us a really good deal on aqua-lungs. He was able to charge us the
same price the Navy paid, below normal wholesale. I think it was $60 for
the regulator, hoses, mouthpiece and tank. He also told us how to use them.
That was before scuba diving had become widely popular, and before
certification existed. The U.S. Divers' Aqua-lung was the only scuba gear
available at that time. On the ship, there was a compressor in the
engineering spaces that was available to charge the tanks. The diving in
the Marshall Islands was absolutely sensational, with millions of colorful
fish and coral formations, and virtually unlimited visibility. I understand
that recently Bikini Islanders, who were treated so miserably during and
after the nuclear tests, have recently been able to return in numbers to
Bikini, and that now the atoll is recognized as one of the premier diving
locations in the world. Diving enthusiasts pay many thousands of dollars to
travel there and be hosted by the islanders. The airfare alone is well over
$4000.
The entire time the Bing Ding was in the Bikini area, most of the spring and
summer of 1956, all of the personnel were given film badges to wear at all
times. They were called "dosimeters", to measure the dose of radiation each
guy had been exposed to. They were checked by the radiation safety people
from time to time, and were sometimes replaced. As far as I can say with
certainty, I am aware of no physical effects from my half year spent in the
radioactive area. I recently had a non-lethal skin cancer removed from my
chest, but as a guy who spent much of my life in the sun of Southern
California without sunscreen, I think it was probably caused by that
exposure. Many of my old surfing friends have had more skin damage than I.
I also have had a lot of arthritic type pains over the years, but now that I
m in my seventies, I don't think they bother me as much as when I was
younger and doing more extreme activities. I take an aspirin or two before
going to bed, exercise regularly, watch my diet, and feel healthy. Every
time I have an X-ray for some reason or other, I think about how we were
told that radioactive exposure is cumulative, and I sometimes mention to the
radiology tech or doctor that I was present at the hydrogen bomb tests in
Bikini.
Mike Barrier
Bingen, WA
Email: barrier@gorge.net
Keith Whittle
February 16, 2004
[ Operation Redwing ]