Emery Borka sent email and pictures about his duty at Operation Dominic.
From: "Emery Borka" eborka@chello.fr
To: "Keith" pdxavets@aracnet.com
Subject: Atomic veteran (Operation Dominic)
Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2000
Keith,
I was detached TDY to Johnson Island from January till August 1962. I was in the Air Force stationed at Andrews AFB and was in the AFCS detachment under the command of Lt.Colonel Jenamin(sp) who got his "birds" while on the Island.
My first memory of the island was walking around it one day after swimming in the lagoon at the little beach not far from the port. At that time none of the small rockets were installed. I got one heck of a sunburn that day (but obviously lived through it). The next thing I knew was we were installing the comm center in a warehouse down by the port. A short time after that they started installing and testing the small rockets along the ocean side of the runway which I was told at that time was 5005 feet long. | 
All photos from Emery Borka.
Click on the picture for a larger view. |
Another big event was the arrival of the first liberty (tracking) ships. One of which did
navigate its way right up to the port. Then there was the installation of the arresting wires for
landings which were like landings on a carrier and the turn of the courageous Navy pilots who came in and landed and helped align the radar. All of these events were special and were witnessed by all who were not working.
As I remember, I lived in the barracks just next to the infirmary and from the roof-top advantage point we could observe every detail of these special events. Then there was always the lagoon where I (we) spent many hour's swimming in some of the most beautiful coral and abundant varieties of multi-colored fish. However, this privilege was short-lived because of two major events. One was the capture of an eel using the raft and
INSIDE the lagoon. The fishermen from Morison-Knudson (sp) hung-up the eel on the fire escape stairway of their barracks. It was at least 10 Feet long (fish story huh) (anyone who remembers knows it was BIG, LONG and had in-curved teeth. This did NOT scare us out of swimming in the lagoon. It took the photographs of the lagoon, taken from a helicopter, in which you could see several schools of sharks. At any rate, by that time everything was installed and testing was about to begin.
Just one last but not least of my memories was the Friday meal of 3 S's: "STEAK
and STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE." It was what we looked forward to each week.
I have a vivid memory of most events and everyday things but dates and names are fuzzy, so please excuse any confusion in the string of events.
The first shot I remember took me to a helicopter attack carrier called the "Iwo Jima" (see photo 15). Quite some experience for a fly-boy being evacuated by helicopter to an aircraft carrier and staying aboard a couple of days. |
All photos from Emery Borka.
Click on the picture for a larger view.
|
I do remember the amazing feeling you can get aboard a carrier, even a small one like the Iwo Jima. The first evening aboard, we were given permission to go up to the flight deck and smoke a cigarette. We did so and went straight to the prow, sat down with our feet dangling over the front edge of the flight deck, lit-up a cigarette. It felt good till someone said "Hey, look behind you"; I (we) immediately did so and to our extreme delight we were seeing the surface we were on "balancing" up and down 20 or 30 meters (or what seemed like it).
During the second shot, the one of July 9, 1962, (we (they, the scientists) tried to get it off for the 4th), I was on duty in the comm center and was told to go to the Liberty ship that was anchored at the port. There we went down into the bowels of the ship to be protected. |
Photo page of Life magazine.. All photos from Emery Borka.
Click on the picture for a larger view. |
We had the special goggles to protect our eyes but since we were in the ship I (we) saw nothing of the blast itself. However, we were released from the very hot bowels of the liberty ship and came to the surface deck. There what I could see will remain indelibly marked in my memory forever. The most eerie and unreal colors lit the night sky. If you look at the photos taken at Honolulu that night, it would be the same. |
The Honolulu Advertiser Front Page Banner on the 9th of July. All photos from Emery Borka.
Click on the picture for a larger view. |
It started with the green color in the Life magazine picture, and went thru all of the colors from photo 1 to 8. As I walked back to the barracks, through the group of parked P2Vs, we looked and talked about what we were seeing. We were all beyond what you could call amazed, we were stunned by both the incredible beauty of the kaleidoscope we were observing and the frightening realization of what one would see after surviving an atomic attack. |
The Honolulu Advertiser Article continued All photos from Emery Borka.
Click on the picture for a larger view. |
The last shot that I participated in, was the one where everything went wrong. I was in the communications room of the command bunker this time. The command bunker was at the opposite end of the island from the launch-pad. My comm room gave into the room where the command controls were installed. We therefore had a front-line view on what was happening. I remember that a civilian scientist (do not remember his name) and General Starbird were present. As the technicians went through the launch procedure, everything seemed ok. On top of the bunker was an observation post. A wooden structure about 30 feet high straight off the top of the bunker. Its function was to allow eyes-on view of the rocket and as I understood indicate to the bunker that ignition has taken place properly. After which the person manning the observation post (a young lieutenant) was told to evacuate the post and enter the bunker.
When lift-off was announced, and then in split seconds countered by malfunctioning of the rocket system, I am not sure who, put his key into the console and turned it thereby exploding the rocket that was just starting to lift-off. The young lieutenant coming down from the observation post had enough time to see what he thought was the rocket motor shoot over his head by about 100 feet and crash into the sea on the runway side of the island. After a few minutes (what seemed like around 10 to 20 minutes) we were released from the bunker to return to our barracks. |
All photos from Emery Borka.
Click on the picture for a larger view. |
As I remember there were metallic parts, some small like the size of nuts and bolts and others as big as a baseball bat. These metallic parts were all over the island. We were told nothing of what had happened but obviously knew that the payload had to be somewhere and the next day I saw frogmen go out to search the area where the payload had theoretically fallen. Finally the searching frogmen disappeared from the island and we supposed that the payload had been found. On the other hand, the barracks were very close to the launch pad and I am surprised that we were not restricted from going back. There was a very small area that was restricted but we did walk up to it to see what had happened to the launch pad. We must have been less than 100 feet from the pad. Odd that no-one informed us on the dangers lurking there, see drawing 17.
One last note on what happened on Johnson Island that summer is the fact that I made my request to get married to my French girlfriend who lived in Paris, France at that time. My request was signed by Colonel Jenemin and General Starbird and I was then sent back to the world (Z.I.) to get married which I promptly did on September 9th 1962. I then received orders to go to France where I did a three year tour of duty and after 10 years, 11 months and 4 or 5 days of active duty, I took my discharge in France and have lived here ever since.
I would very much like to chat live or by email with anyone who was on Operation Dominic.
Emery Borka
eborka@chello.fr
A.F.C.S. USAF
Torcy, France
(ex. Flint Michigan)
Click through Emerys Photo Album
Page 1 | Page 2 |
Keith Whittle
September 30, 2000
[ Operation Dominic ]
