To: Keith Whittle
These letters are copies of the ones I mailed to my wife, Romell,
52 years ago from the USS Bountiful at Bikini, for Operation Crossroads. I was a Pharmicists Mate, 1st Class, U.S.N assigned to the Bountiful at that time, July 1946.
I hope these letters will be of some use to you and your group in your study of the beginning of atomic warfare, in World War II.
Sincerely,
Charles S. Decker Jr.
1075 N. Folsom
Coquille, Oregon, 97423
Second Tour, Pacific Duty, 1946
Operation Crossroads
Bikini Atomic Bomb Tests
July 1, 1946
"Able Day" 3 p.m.,
Outside lagoon
This was the big day--had a real honest to goodness atomic bomb visit here today and it left quite an impression.
I don't know whether you listened to it over the radio or not - it was a very complete broadcast (we heard it here, too, for a wonder. But even if you didn't hear the radio you've probably read something about it in the paper. So I won't go into a lot of useless details, I'll just tell you want I saw from here.
At 8:30 a.m. this morning we were called on deck and mustered on the foc's'le deck. We had already set condition A (closed all watertight doors and hatches). The loudspeakers were set up so we could hear the broadcasts and the "stand by" orders. It was a bright sunny day with a cool breeze blowing toward us from the atoll. There were a few clouds but not enough to endanger the project. We saw several B-29's go over about 10 minutes to 9 - one of them no doubt was the bombing plane. Both of them were flying high.
At 2 minutes to 9 we were told to face away from the blast and cover our eyes with our arms. At 9 a.m (about 5 p.m. June 30th back there) we could hear the broadcaster say the bomb was dropped - then there was silence and we got the word to "carry on." All of us rushed to the starboard rail to watch the cloud. It grew swiftly larger, and was lighted from within. As it grew it looked like a mushroom shaped piece of cotton candy like we used to get at the carnivals when we were kids, even to that shade of pink the stuff used to have.
Approximately one minute after the explosion--about 0901--we heard the dull "boom" lasting for several seconds, where we were 12 miles away.
The cloud grew for about 10 minutes--must have risen to about 20,000 feet, I'd guess. Anyway it went almost up to the B-29's. However by about 9:30 the cloud was no longer visible--the clouds of the weather were hiding the parts of the bomb cloud which was drifting with the wind. A It was a sinister looking cloud -- it's tremendous growth, and that turbulent appearance, with those lights glowing within, and glowering out through the white tinged edges.
The planes (B-29's, and carrier planes) flew around it and several of the "drone" (radio controlled) planes flew through it.
I've heard a lot of scuttlebutt about the results, but I'll tell you what I really can see about tomorrow when we go in. We're approaching to within a few miles of the atoll now. We can see the palms on the island plainly--at least they don't seem damaged greatly! I can see the Saratoga, she seems to be smoking some. From the amount of smoke arising around the lagoon, several ships must be burning badly. Can't see which one, though. It's said some smaller ships were sunk and that others are badly damaged. We'll find out soon.