Operation Plumbbob
1957
U.S. Atomic Veterans
Darel Brower
Darel Brower sent the following email.
From: "Darel Brower" Dbrower@ec.rr.com
To: "Keith Whittle" pdxavets@aracnet.com
Subject: Atomic Update-2
Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2007
The following is an excerpt from my unpublished memoirs covering a brief moment in my military career.
I was serving as a Staff Sergeant and Flight Mechanic in VMR-352, A Marine Aviation Transport Squadron,
located at MACS, EL Toro, California. It is my best recollections of the 1957 Atomic Tests Series titled
PLUMBBOB and took place during shots PRISCILLA, DIABLO, AND HOOD. Any memorabilia that had been saved
from those experiences suffered degradation in storage during a number of years when my residence was a
33 foot Sloop on the coast of North Carolina.
Somewhere in the middle of all this, I had been selected to train in the detection and monitoring,
of Atomic, Biological, and Chemical, Warfare. It was another of the Marine's intense schools to meet the
new needs of combat. This I found to be quite interesting, as it dealt in some areas of atomic physics,
which was something more in line with my natural scientific interest, as was the biological and chemical
part of the school. After completing the course, I was sent back to the squadron with additional duties
in what was now a growing team of monitoring personnel.
About April of 1957, I was handed a sheet of paper that made little sense to me. There were five
names on it, one of which was mine, and the others I recognized as navigators and radiomen in our two
squadrons. It said something about reporting to some outfit for operations at Camp Desert Rock. I hadn’t
the vaguest idea what or where this Desert Rock was, although the name seemed to imply some undesirable
place in the desert. It certainly didn’t imply, green grass, palm trees and cool water. My conversation
with a couple of the others revealed that we all had Secret or Top-secret Clearances and training in atomic
warfare. Beyond that we knew very little. I had been assigned as crew chief on flights involving the
movement of atomic weapons because of my Secret Clearance, but never gave it much thought. During those
times, security in the area of knowledge about the Atom Bomb was held with great regard.
In a few days we found ourselves at Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendelton, California, down the coast
from El Toro, as part of a Marine Atomic Brigade of about two thousand troops. We were to be a relatively
small part of the Brigade, I don’t remember just how many of us there were, it seems like about fifty.
They kept us separated from the rest of the troops and we were informed to keep our mission to ourselves.
Our briefings took place behind locked doors with heavily armed guards outside, and no one was allowed to
enter or leave during that time. Some of our group had positions in Cryptography and other highly
classified jobs within the Marine Corps and all were trained in monitoring of atomic warfare. We weren’t
to use the word "bomb", it would be referred to as a "device", and we were repeatedly warned that the
penalty for divulging any knowledge of the atomic bomb or what we were involved in would be severe;
something like one year in federal prison and a 10 thousand dollar fine. We were also warned that agents
would be checking on us wherever we went with no way of our knowing who they were.
Roughly what it all came down to, was our participation in Radiological Training around three atomic
detonations, plus surveying radiation in areas of previous detonations; all to take place at the Atomic
Proving Grounds at the Nevada Test Site. Again like those that have swum in the Arctic Ocean, I was also
one of the relatively few to have ever seen the devastation at ground zero of an atomic bomb.
Our experiences at the site were something I think many would have decided against had they been
given a choice, and a couple did panic; especially when we were positioned so close in to ground zero
for one of the tests. That could probably be attributed to our intense training on calculating the
distances and effects of the bombs. If I recall correctly, the bombs dropped on Japan, delivered complete
devastation in a six square mile area from both blast and thermal radiation. For this test, we were to be
positioned in open trenches right at three miles from ground zero of a bomb that we knew would be several
times the size of the bombs dropped on Japan. I well remember being briefed the night before, and we were
told we would be close enough to the bomb, that if anyone were to allow just one little finger near the top
of the trench, at detonation, it would immediately be burned from the light or what we called thermal
radiation. With our schooling, we needed no more warning than that.
Our desert habitat was as expected, with confinement to a tent city during most of the time when we
weren’t out on the test site. The heat of the day climbed well over the hundred mark, with next to nothing
for humidity. Again, unlike the movies which wish to portray everyone with wet brow and clothing, we had
no show of perspiration, only salt marks on the clothing. They saw to it that we had plenty of water to
drink and the food from a mess tent was good with plenty to eat. That was the extent of our comfort.
Beyond that, the Nevada desert wasn’t exactly a hospitable place. On those days when we just stayed in
the shade of the tents with nothing to do, I would soak a bath towel with water and lay under it for
comfort. This provided cooling and relief from the blowing sand of the never ending dust devils of the
day time desert. When classes of any kind were held, for some reason or other, it was usually around
midday in the direct sunlight, and I recall trying to keep my toes from coming in contact with the top
leather of those black boots, for it would feel as if they would blister.
Our radiation surveys were interesting, taking us into areas of previous test sites. One I remember
was less than a month old and our instruments were recording significant amounts of radiation. Although
many times lower than the initial test readings, due to the half life decay rate of the atomic nucleus.
While in these areas for a considerable number of hours, we had to be very careful not to allow anything
to come in contact with our skin or clothing other than our shoes, as we would start to receive burns,
within three to four hours after contact. This meant the desire to sit or reach down and pickup some
harmless looking relic from the explosion had to be guarded against. In the outer edges of the sites,
we would find fragments of the towers from which the devices were detonated and they showed signs of
being melted like candle wax in that very brief instant of atomic fission. At ground zero of one site,
I was surprised to find a concrete bunker in fairly good condition, surviving the explosion, but we all
knew that if it had contained any living organisms surviving both blast and heat, the nuclear radiation
would have reduced it to a mass of protoplasm in that first instant. For a human, it was always referred
to as a “gibbering mass of protoplasm.”
Our first exposure to a detonation finally came on the morning of June 24, 1957, just after the
bright morning sun was making its way over the eastern mountain slopes of a place called Frenchmen Flat.
There the device was suspended from a balloon at about seven hundred feet above the flat. The name of
the shot was Priscilla and some of us were positioned on a mountain side about six miles to the west of
ground zero, where we could look down through a large ravine for a clear wide open exposure to the event.
The rest of our team was placed down on the flat in open trenches, at a distance of about two or three
miles from ground zero where things were about to become pretty rough. When time came to within a few
minutes of the detonation, we were told to stand and turn away from the test site, and not to under any
circumstances look back at the site. There was no mistaking the fact that failure to do so would be
flirting with the danger of losing one’s eyesight. We had been instructed that the yield of the device
would be equal to 35 thousand tons of TNT, which later turned out to be thirty seven thousand tons of TNT,
or close to three times the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima Japan. We were wearing helmets and just
regular dungarees with field jackets, nothing special. The countdown seemed to take forever, until just
before the last ten seconds when we were instructed to keep our eyes open. I'm not sure anyone was
breathing, as it surely could have been heard, I never knew anything could be so eerie. When the count
went from ten to zero, everything lost its color, including the olive drab truck parked in front of us.
It all turned brilliant silver-white, the air around us was alive with the sizzling and crackling of
electrical charges, but no noise other than that. My neck, which was the only skin I had exposed directly
to the light, felt as if someone was holding a blowtorch to it. In my mind, those moments seemed to have
slowed to near stop until the brilliance started taking on a yellowish glow and a voice came over a speaker
system, saying “turn around and face the blast.” I had never expected to see anything so terrific as that
fireball; a boiling mass of hell is about the best description I can think of, with its hues of red, green,
blue and yellow, hot radioactive gases. By now it was nearly straight across from our position. Still all
was very quiet, except for sounds of awe from some of us, then as we had been taught, the earth started
rolling back and forth for a bit, and still, not a sound of anything, until one of the troops remembering
our teachings, like a question, mentioned shock wave? He barely got the words out of his mouth, when we
saw a giant gray circle racing straight at us from the base of the ravine, within moments I heard the
loudest noise of my entire life, an indescribably loud CRACK, not a boom, but a CRACK that was as sharp
as the enormous stinging, over my entire body, my eyes felt as if they had been blasted with gravel, and
it hurt. About the best description I have ever been able to relate it to, would be the feeling of someone
snapping your entire body with a wet towel. It was especially severe about the hands and face. I'd have
to say that with such a sharp shockwave, our body inertia kept us from being repositioned to a new location.
This caused some of the troops to instinctively lurch for rocks or anything else they might be able to hide
behind. Then it was somewhat quiet again for a bit, until about the time we remembered the secondary shock
wave, which soon hit us from the other direction, just as it had been described in the classroom. It was
powerful also, but somewhat less than the first. Then came the thunder of the explosion which seemed to have
a duration well beyond that of a distant thunderbolt; occurring and reoccurring as it traveled through
canyons and off mountain slopes finally dying out to undetectable levels. If I recall correctly, it was
reported that a control center 14 miles away from ground zero, had its concrete walls cracked, and doors
blown off their hinges. These were test devices and it was apparent that no one really knew what the
explosive yields were going to be.
Some days later, we attended our next test, this one wasn’t to be as large and we would be in trenches
at a fairly close distance from a device located on top of a five hundred foot tower. This shot was named
Diablo. Just before dawn, we knelt in the bottom of the trenches, face down, wearing gas mask with one arm
over the eye pieces and eyes closed tight. When the count went to zero, with the tension, it was a mental
jolt when nothing happened. No one dared move and the only thing that could be heard was an expletive or
two. This was another of those longest moments when time seemed to stop. For close to twenty minutes, we
held those positions, afraid to open our eyes for fear of detonation at any moment. Both of my legs went
to sleep from poor circulation, we were all hurting when a voice finally came over the speaker system,
telling us to stand, climb out of the trenches facing away from the tower, not to under any circumstances
look back and to move away from the test area. We were soon loaded aboard trucks and transported out of
the area, feeling some degree of relief.
Three scientists, unable to use the towers elevator for fear the vibration would set the device off,
volunteered to climbed to the top and fix the problem. It was later detonated without our immediate presence.
On July, the fifth, 1957, the largest above ground atomic explosion, ever to take place on the North
American Continent was to occur. Our platoon leader briefed us about midnight prior to getting on the trucks,
telling us that the expected yield would be 60 kilotons, and what the expected calorie count per square
centimeter would be if anyone were to stick just one finger near the top of the trench; pretty much referring
to a quick Barbeque. Then he put the icing on the cake by letting us know, our select group was to have the
dubious honor of being the closest human beings to ground zero, five kilometers. He was quite serious during
the briefing; I recall having mixed feelings about our welfare, most of us had seen the pictures of dummies
lying in fox holes with their clothing on fire, not a comfortable thought, but then again these guys knew
what they were doing, or did they?
After the blast we were to move into the point, where abrupt increases in radiation would be cause
to proceed no farther. Again we would be in open trenches about five or six feet deep, just wide enough
for our shoulders. I remember one of my concerns was being buried alive and the other, as one of the guys
said, it would be just his luck for the scientist to have miscalculated the size of the bomb.
The name of this shot would be Hood, and preparations for the test involved radio and newspaper warnings
for all people, in and around, the State of Nevada, not to look towards the area of the test site during the
morning of the blast. The light energy was anticipated to be so intense that direct viewing of the detonation
within a 60 mile radius was considered hazardous to the eyes. Even though these test were blocked from view by
the surrounding mountains, on this test, State Police blocked traffic and cleared highways for miles from the
Nevada test area, in an effort to safeguard from this, and also in an effort to prevent anyone from being
startled or distracted by the flash while driving.
Again we climbed into the trenches, this time after looking at the dimly lit balloon that held the
device 1500 feet above a place called Yucca Flat. We were already in the long eerie silent moments of the
countdown, an experience of feelings difficult to convey with words. The morning twilight, with the still,
pleasant air, as if the desert was still sleeping, was in high contrast to what was about to happen. As we
would probably be located somewhere in, and under the base cloud, we again wore gas masks, in the event of
what we called a dirty bomb; highly radioactive. None of us used a pencil and paper to calculate what the
distance of the initial gamma radiation would be from the detonation. That’s the type of radiation that can
penetrate everything and cause real damage to the body; however it doesn't travel far from the origin. I
think most of us suspected we would be within its reach and didn’t really want to know what the figures were.
With the warning of possible thermal burns if we weren’t careful, I think we all braved the trench cave in,
and knelt face down as close to the bottom of that trench as possible. It was about this point; one of our
group, a man who had been awarded several Purple Hearts, started to panic, and it was about all his buddies
could do to settle him down just in time for the last ten seconds of the countdown. I remembered to make
sure that my collar was covering my neck, and did all I could to cover every bit of the eye pieces on my
mask with my arm, while keeping my eyes closed as tight as possible, just as we were instructed to do.
When the count went to zero, we wouldn’t be disappointed; even with my eyes tightly closed, and jacket
sleeve tightly covering the lenses of my mask and its thick gray rubber, my eyes were inundated with
brilliant white light. Some have claimed to have seen the shadow of bone in their arm at this point,
I didn’t. When I thought it had died down enough I moved my arm a little while opening my eyes just
slightly, and to this day my mind can still see the silver-white sand and gravel on the bottom of the
trench. Eventually it started changing to a yellow, then yellow red, and I raised my head slightly to
look down the trench for a short distance just as it started moving like a giant snake; it felt as if the
earth under us had turned to liquid. Still no sound of anything or anyone as we went along for the ride
while anticipating the miserable hurt of that shockwave. This continued for some seconds as parts of the
trench started caving in on some of the troops and their equipment. Struggling was going on as the buddy
system went in affect to keep others above the cave-ins while trying to stay as low as possible, for we all
knew what was coming, wasn’t going to be just a Hollywood myth. Suddenly there was a very loud boom, but
nothing like the shock wave that hit us while standing in the open during the Priscilla detonation. The
enormous energy passed right over the top of the trenches. Now we were unable to see but a few feet in any
direction, because of the dense smoke and dust surrounding us. Then the incoming shock wave passed over with
relief for all of us.
Immediately radiation levels were checked as we climbed out of the trenches, and were given permission
to remove the mask. Visibility began improving a bit as the cloud started to dissipate and we were beginning
to see up through the dirty brown murky haze where it was possible to make out something I have never seen in
any photograph, it was the sight of a very close “stem-cloud” leading far above us as it kept feeding debris
and smoke into the undersides of the fireball, nearly straight over head. It too had all the beauty of Priscilla.
Standing there for a few moments, I remember wondering what it must be like inside that boiling mass of fury.
When I was finally able to take my eyes off the spectacle I began looking down at the clumps of desert grass
burning all around us, which was something I don’t think any of us expected to find ourselves in the middle of.
I remember looking way out where you could make out the outer edge of the cloud covering us, and trying to judge
how far out it was. This was about the time I was distracted by a rather large desert rodent, wondering around,
seemingly oblivious to our presents, its fur appeared scorched on one side, it was probably totally blind and
confused. I wanted to put it out of its misery, but this big bad marine just couldn’t do it, I guess I was feeling
sorry for the poor thing.
While the main part of the Brigade, which was located some distance behind us, left the area for war
games, we were transported by truck around the main blast area and closer in toward ground zero. There I saw
a large hillside some distance out from us that had been pretty well cleaned of vegetation and what little was
left, still in flames. Getting off the trucks, we reset our pocket dosimeters to zero; I don’t recall what it
was reading before that, probably not much or I probably would have remembered it. The maps were opened for
plotting and we started our survey in a very bleak looking desert, cleansed of all its plant and animal life.
As we slowly worked our way toward ground zero the radiation was rising as it should. We all wore film badges
and carried pocket dosimeters, plus we were using radiation counters. The purpose of the film badge was to
provide a record of our total gamma radiation. We maintained a constant watch on the counters, while period-
ically checking the pocket dosimeters. The farther in we got, the more the sand became like fine Talcum
powder, five or six inches deep. From the beginning of our walk, we encountered the remains of vehicles and
other equipment that had been left there for effects. They were now scattered across the desert as mangled
and twisted fragments of metal. What may have been a truck engine was lying there, pretty much intact, but
not a sign of a truck close by, we did find the remains of what may have been the truck some distance from it.
Sections of a deformed lattice structure appeared to be the remains of a crane. A mangled gas tank had one
end that revealed its molten state just prior to being penetrated with the fine desert gravel. A large
military tank, still pretty much a tank, had been thrown across the sand, and came to rest right side up with
tread marks leading to its resting point.
Our radiation readings of significant amounts leveled off at about 1 roentgen and remained steady for
about twenty minutes. While we were in this area, a jeep with part of our group went on past us waving in
jest, letting the rest know they were sitting down riding. They apparently had forgotten about one of the
points stressed during training, of the high radiation zone, where radio activity builds very quickly as you
enter into it. In fact we were taught there would be significant increases with every step we took, and we
hit that point just after they went by. We bumped along that line for some distance, passing in and out of
it to obtain a profile, and then moved back out of the area. Talking to one of them later, I found out they
caught their mistake about the time they were receiving twenty times our readings, and we were as they now say,
pushing the envelope. With the temperature climbing over the hundred mark, the wind was picking up, blowing
the radioactive dust around us and we should have put the mask on, but it was just too easy to leave it in its
container with the heat as it was. We at least backed out to a much lower radiation level before we consumed
the typical canned military lunch. Though our accumulated doses of radiation were thousands of times more than
we should have been exposed to, they wouldn’t be considered major, although the rates at which we received some
of it, had to be causing undetermined biological damage. The problem with nuclear radiation is its invisible
silent destruction, which can cause one to be careless around it; you don't feel anything happening, but it is,
and it may not show up for years. As far as I know none of us received any immediate contact burns from the
low energies of neutron and proton radiation that hangs around so long after the fission process. However,
within days of leaving the test area, I began having chronic discomfort from heartburn, which I now feel, came
from ingesting an accumulation of radiation from the dust.
I was to read some years hence of a platoon leader in the trenches farther out from the blast than us,
he described being buried to his waist, and unable to free himself while being exposed to the devastating
effects of thermo and blast. Two of his men were missing and never seen again. He was to find out much later
that they tried to run when the trenches began caving in, putting themselves in direct exposure to both thermo
and nuclear radiation, then the shockwave, causing their death.
Later, the papers carried pictures of the Los Angeles sky line lit up to the east, while an airline
pilot flying near the Hawaiian Islands, reported viewing the light from the explosion. Observations were also
made from as far away as Canada and Mexico. Over twenty minutes later the shock wave hit the Los Angeles area
including our home in Santa Ana, rattling doors and windows; waking my wife and leaving her to wonder if we had
all been killed. Hood exceeded the expected 60 kilotons; instead it has been published as having a yield of
74,000 tons of TNT, or between five and six times that of the Hiroshima bomb. This device was no bigger than a
kitchen trash container, measuring only 1 foot by 3½ feet long, yet it exploded with the force of 74,000 of
the famous German V-2 bombs, all detonating at one time in a single location. It has been said that the real
yield of the device is still classified, and that this bomb had “thermo nuclear” properties which would put
it in the category of the fusion process; the most destructive of all. The bombs that destroyed the two cities
in Japan were rated between thirteen and twenty thousand tons. A later test in the pacific was accomplished
with one that I believe, was about fifteen million tons.
Certainly, I couldn’t have imagined, while riding in the back seat of that 1940 Ford, on Johnson Road
where it slopes down to Bear Creek, near Brethren Michigan, and listening to a radio announcement about the
destruction of a city in Japan, that one day I would be taking part in mans tinkering with the enormous forces
buried within everything we know. The enormity of the energy from that small mass of fissionable material
that could probably fit on a dinner plate, rocking everything for thousands of square miles, remains locked
firmly in my mind since those tests.
Realizing what I acquired from those experiences was likely different than most of the others, I'd have
to say it was a major help to me in understanding how real the forces of the atomic world are, and that somehow
they have been brought together in the form of harmony for the sake of life and a supporting environment. As I
see it; our existence couldn’t have just come from some simple coming together of these forces; it all had to
be done through a deliberate and controlled process.
July 16, 2007
Atomic Veterans Day.
Darel Brower
1915 Rolling Ridge Dr.
Midway Park, NC 28544
Keith Whittle
Original posting May 7, 1998
Update posted Oct 29, 2007
50 th Anniversary Operation Plumbbob.
[ Operation Plumbbob ]