To: pdxavets@aracnet.com
From: Scott Edward Bosecker sbosecker@mindspring.com
Subject: My father's participation in Operation Upshot-Knothole: Nancy
Test
RICHARD BOSECKER'S RECOLLECTIONS OF THE NANCY NUCLEAR WEAPONS TEST
I was drafted and inducted into the United States Army on October 15, 1951.
I arrived in Korea on Easter Sunday of 1952. On October 17, 1952, I was
wounded by a mortar fragment and transported from Korea to Osaka, Japan to
an Army hospital. I spent about 8 weeks in Japan and then was shipped back
to the United States where I took 30 days leave at home in Indiana before
reporting to Camp Carson, Colorado.
Although I had been assigned to infantry units up to this point, I now found
myself in a basic training artillery battery. When I arrived at Camp
Carson, I was a corporal and I helped train the new recruits.
In early March of 1953, the battery commander, Captain Hardy, called me and
a Sergeant Worrall to his office. Captain Hardy told us there was going to
be an atomic test at Yucca Flats, Nevada involving military personnel. The
military participants would have to attend a couple of classes and would be
gone from Camp Carson for about 10 days. The Captain wondered if Sergeant
Worrall and I would be interested in volunteering to go to the test. The
Captain told us to think about it and to give him an answer the next day.
Worrall and I left the Captain's office and we discussed the Captain's
proposal. We decided that getting away from Camp Carson and basic training
duties for 10 days sounded pretty good. We decided to volunteer.
After we volunteered, we attended a couple of classes with about 50 other
men from Camp Carson. The instructors were officers familiar with the
testing program and to the best of my recollection, they presented one class
in the morning and then the second in the afternoon. The officers told us
how many other people would be there, that we would be in trenches during
the blast and how far we would be from the blast. There was quite a bit of
technical information about radiation that basically was over our heads.
We had all heard how powerful the atomic bombs were. The main point that
the instructors were trying to get across in these classes was that even
though these weapons were very powerful, their power was limited; they
could be experienced safely from a distance.
The remainder of the classes covered the logistics of the operation.
Transportation to and from the test site, what our daily schedule would be
and the fact that we would get some free time to spend in Las Vegas was
covered. At the end of the classes, we were given a paper to sign.
Although I remember signing the paper, I don't remember what was written on
the paper.
A couple of days after attending the classes, I, along with the other 50 men
from Camp Carson, boarded a train to Las Vegas via Salt Lake City. I was on
the train for 2 days and 2 nights. From Las Vegas we took military buses to
the test site.
When we got to the test site we went through security and were taken to our
encampment. We stayed in tents which held about 24 men. I'm pretty sure we
were issued a fresh set of fatigues. I can't remember the exact schedule of
events but we were given some more briefings and we also went out to where
the trenches were and did a "dry run" of what we were going to do the
morning of the test. We also spent some time in Las Vegas but I can't
remember if this was before or after the blast.
On the morning of the test, before the sun had come up, we got into buses
and rode to where we would be observing the blast. There were 5 or 6
trenches spaced about 12 to 15 feet apart. The trenches were about 5 feet
deep. When you stood up in them, your head was all that was above the
ground. Although it was pretty dark, we knew what to do because of the "dry
run" the day before.
We got in the trenches. There was a fellow with a radio that passed the
word to us as get ready for the blast. We had been briefed to crouch in the
trench and they recommended covering your eyes with your hands, so that's
what I did.
In two or three minutes, despite the fact that my hands were over my eyes,
there was a brilliant light that blinded me and I felt heat. I removed my
hands but was unable to see anything but white. A few seconds later the
ground "rolled" as if on a small boat in a two foot swell; then came the
noise of the explosion, which was deafening. A short time later there was a
rush of wind from the blast.
By now I had regained my vision and we were told to get out of the trench
quickly and to look behind the trenches. What they wanted us to observe
were a few small fires, like match heads, burning behind us. These fires
were caused by very small pieces of flaming material that had been blown
over our heads while we were in the trenches.
Immediately after looking at the small fires behind us, I turned to look in
the direction of the blast. Most of us have seen movies of nuclear
explosions that show the fireball forming into the familiar mushroom cloud.
Those movies are taken from a distance; we were so close that the cloud was
as much above us as in front of us. At this time, as we turned and looked,
the cloud was a boiling black & red mass moving higher into the sky.
We now started to assemble to begin our simulated assault on the positions
to the northwest of the blast. While getting organized the wind shifted and
blew the dust cloud from the explosion towards us. As we were engulfed by
the cloud of dust, there was some confusion from the leaders as to how to
proceed with the simulated assault.
I speculate the confusion was over how to handle this unplanned wind-shift.
The leaders were very busy checking their Geiger counters and comparing
readings. In a few minutes the dust cloud dissipated and we proceeded to
move forward.
We moved forward 3/4 of a mile and observed the in-ground bunker that the
volunteer officers had been in. We continued to move forward and came to an
area with two sheep pens. One pen had sandbags protecting it and the sheep
inside looked entirely normal. The other pen was just a barbed-wire
enclosure and offered no protection to the sheep. The sheep in the
unprotected pen had their wool scorched brown on whatever side had been
facing the explosion. All of the sheep were alive but we were told that
they would all soon be dead due to the radiation they had received from the
blast.
Not long after we passed the sheep pens we were told we had gone forward far
enough due radiation levels. We turned to our right and proceeded to an
area where buildings had been destroyed and army vehicles had been somewhat
damaged by the blast.
The remainder of the exercise consisted of marching out of the area before
being bussed back to camp. My recollection is the whole exercise lasted
about 3 hours. As we were being bussed out, the driver pointed out an area
far behind our trenches where news media and VIP's had watched the test.
Upon my return to camp my radiation badge was collected. We turned in the
fatigues that had been issued when we arrived and we showered. I returned
to Camp Carson where I spent the remaining 3 1/2 months of my Army tour.
[Richard Bosecker left the Army in 1953 and returned to the family farm
located about 5 miles south of Vincennes, IN. He is now 68 years old and
retired from farming. He has no apparent health problems. The interviews
that were used to compose this story were conducted by his son, Scott
Bosecker, and took place in November of 1998.]
Best regards,
Scott Bosecker
Email: sbosecker@mindspring.com