Hardtack 1958
US Atomic Veterans
Robert Clayton
Robert Clayton sent email about his duty at Operation Hardtack.
From: "Froggy" froggy@nwrain.com
To: "Keith" pdxavets@aracnet.com
Subject: Hardtack
Date: 1/31/07
My name is Robert Clayton. I was an engineman on the U.S.S. Lawrence County LST 887, in 1958. We were participants in Operation Hardtack. Watched all 13 of the blasts we participated in. I had double cataract surgery as a result. I wonder if you have any idea if there is any chance of getting any renumeration from Uncle Sam. I tried and got brushed off. Also, do you know of anyway to contact my old shipmates?
Thanks for any help you can offer.
My duties were keeping the engine room clean and running the oil through the centrifugal spin cleaning device. It left a thick rubbery scum that we always threw overboard. I shudder not to think of all the oil we threw overboard at sea.
I remember sitting on the fan tail of the ship, perfect weather. Writing a letter and suddenly with no warning, rain coming down by the bucketfull.
I remember having night watch duty and laying up in the prow of the ship and watching the irridescent foam off the bow. Some kind of little sea critters that glowed. And laying on my back at night, looking at the stars. So many of them.
On weekends we would set up a screen and some chairs and watch a movie. Another ship would come along side from time to time, and we would send an officer over in a chair suspended from a cable with the old movies and he would pick up the new movies.
we had all Phillipino crew members who took care of all duties on the officers deck.
I had a set of barbells down on the freight deck and worked out down there in my spare time.
I would borrow the ships record player and play my country and westen music.
We always had a poker or craps game going around payday. The paymaster would come aboard and one by one we would be called up to the locker in the bow of the ship to be handed our pay. Then below decks the winners would make sure they got the money owed to them. I played cards once, but soon learned that the game was rigged and quit playing. The first class petty officer and one of the second class petty officers had played with the deck so long they knew the cards by feel.
Out at the atolls where we set off the bombs, we got liberty and LSDs would drop us off at one of the Islands where we played softball or lounged around the Islands. Old tanks and planes were half buried in the sand at waters edge. A grim reminder of the battles fought there.. or maybe put there to see the effects of the bombs. I notice no officer ever set foot on those Islands where we had liberty. The water was so clear, that when we looked over the edge of the LSDs on the way to and from the liberty islands, it didn't appear as thought there was any water. It seemed we were suspended and looking right at the bottom.
There were nets set up so if we wanted to swim we didn't have to worry about sharks, although I never saw a fish, except for dead oness floating after a bomb went off and jelly fish everywhere.
We were usually 13 miles from a bomb. Except for the underwater blasts. I remember seeing a carrier being tossed end over end into the air. And seeing rockets being shot through the column of the blast. For what purpose I don't know.
We had to wear tags around our neck to measure the amount of roentgens were being exposed to. But of course once the tags were exposed to radioactive rainwater, they were useless. More of something we were just going throught the numbers doing. Because the officers said to do. But it was obvious from their attitude that they were just going through the motions doing it.
We had liberty in Tijuana shortly before we left for the pacific area near the atolls. I soon found I had a case of the crabs. I had to use some jelly that burned like fire. I remember going up topside at night and dropping my pants to let the cool breeze sooth me. lol. But I had it easier than a couple of the guys, who had a case of the clap. Ah Tijuana.. we should have dropped one of the bombs on that cesspool.
At one of the small Islands near Hawaii where we docked to load something, the shore patrol came aboard and took one of the ships personel off because he had a camera he wasn't supposed to have and was taking pictures of the stuff we were loading off the little Island. The word circulated that he was some kind of spy.
I remember being dissappointed that Honolulu looked pretty much like Seattle. Not at all what I had been expecting.
The bars looked just like the bars in San Diego.
" God gave Noah the rainbow sign.
Said no more water, but the fire next time.”
Robert Clayton
1222 so 38th st
Tacoma, Wa. 98418
253-472-3704
Email: froggy@nwrain.com
Keith Whittle
February 2, 2007
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