Atomic Veterans History Project
Genie Air Defense Rocket
Officer Volunteers,
Operation Plumbbob, Shot John, 1957
November 28, 1999 -- This history of the Officer Volunteers who stood directly underneath the detonation of Shot John, Operation Plumbbob in 1957 was submitted to us by Cathy Tiano, daughter of Frank Ball one of the Volunteers pictured below.
A video sequence of this shot which very clearly shows these men flashed in the unique atomic light and struck by the heavy shockwave was released a couple of years ago by the DOE. It was also used in the new video Atomic Filmmakers narrated by William Shatner. This newest video tells the story of the man taking the pictures of the volunteers during the detonation. A mention is made of him at the bottom of the letter Cathy sent.
From: GOLDIESMOMMY@aol.com
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999
Subject: still looking for "GENIE"
To: pdxavets@aracnet.com
Keith, I'm having a very hard time finding any info on the "Genie" test . I'm
new to the internet so maybe it's just me or there isn't anything. I know
that my father stood under a blast that was dropped from an aircraft. I have
pictures and I also remember hearing a tape recorded account of the
experiance. It took place sometime in the mid to late 50's . Please help! CT.
Thanks.
From: GOLDIESMOMMY@aol.com
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1999
Subject: Re: still looking for "GENIE"
To: pdxavets@aracnet.com
Hi Keith, yes, I was able to get the picture. I have that picture myself. It
was part of my dads things that I was able to save before he died. I did come
across an interesting letter I guess you'd call it. The title of it is,
"Ground zero: Fact for the Fretful!" I would like to send you a copy. When you get this I'd like your thoughts on it . Thank you very much for your time,
Cathy.
From: GOLDIESMOMMY@aol.com
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1999
Subject: Re: still looking for "GENIE"
To: pdxavets@aracnet.com
Keith,
Thanks for getting back to me so soon. What has peaked my interest so much is the
fact that I cannot find ANY data on this "genie" shot. It's like it never
happened. I also remember my father had a huge picture, actually beautiful,
about 17x24 of the actual explosion with the little rocket trails falling
away. I don't know what happen to that though. I would like to find out whats
happened to the other "volunteers". Their names being, Norman Bodinger, John
Hughes, Don Luttrell, Sidney Bruce and my father, Frank Ball.
again I'd like to thank you for your interest,
Cathy
This article written by Colonel Barney Oldfield, USAF (Ret.) was written during an intense Public Relations effort that reached it's height during the 30 atomic detonations of Operation Plumbbob 1957. KW
Click here for four pictures from the DOE Video of the "Genie" launching at Operation Plumbbob. Genie Rocket and Officer Volunteers at Shot John, Operation Plumbbob, 1957.
GROUND ZERO: FACT FOR THE FRETFUL
By Col. Barney Oldfield, USAF (Ret.)
They were all volunteers in the best military tradition. Among them, they had 22 years of experience with nuclear weaponry. Their offer was courageous, carefully calculated on the basis of their competence. They were in the same mold as the yellow fever adversaries named Walter Reed, James Carroll, Jesse Lazear, and Aristide Agramonte who before the turn of the century bared their bodies to the stegomvia fasciata (later named Aedes Aegypti) mosquito which was the suspected germ carrier. They were convinced of the specifics of performance of the 2.5 kiloton MB -1 "Genie" air-to-air rocket and believed there was no reason to fear their exposure under conditions of its operational use subjected them to either lingering
death or physical impairment. Air Force officers all, the five were Col. Sidney Bruce, Lt. Col. Frank Ball, and Majors Norman Bodinger, John Hughes, and Don Luttrell, then with what was about to be Hq. North American Air Defense Command, in Colorado Springs, Colo. It was the year of the 'Plumbbob" series of nuclear tests scheduled for Yucca Flats/Las Yegas, Nevada, in the Sumner of 1957.
Much was riding on this one shot. While others in the tests were devices, the "Genie" was a new air defense weapon. Already being placed on U. S. bases near aircraft equipped to carry them, it was imperative to reduce the unknowns about the "Genie". Enemy bombers then capable of being employed in attack on North America could approach targets at 10 miles per minute, so every minute saved in interception of such hostile intruders was crucial in keeping them from reaching targets. Although there had been provision for a joint Canada/US Air Defense in original NATO planning in 1949, only now eight years later, was Hq NORAD about to be born (Sept. 12, 1957). After much negotiation and expressed concerns, elementary logic had prevailed that air defense of North America was really one problem which required contributions of both nations in common purpose if there was to be any "forward strategy" at all. Canada was always nervous about nuclear matters, and many Americans were so emotionally anti-nuclear they seemed to prefer being naked to such armaments of an enemy rather than have any counter-punch capability. The possibility that any last ditch defense of North America might be overhead might be realistic, but it gave politicians on both sides of the border sour stomachs. The need for public reassurance and gaining public confidence was pressing, and restrictions on how much could be said on atomic matters were a snakepit of out of sight security classifications, shapes, tonnages, costs, locations-- name it, and it couldn't be done. Gen. Earle E. Partridge who would be the first NORAD CINC, said something had to be done to get air defense atomic weapons "out" and get some explanations going about them. When he told me to work on this, he gave me a sound admonition: "Keep me posted about what you're doing, as I can keep you out of jail better than I can get you out"! The key part of all this was to get agreement from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to fire an MB-1 in the 1957 series, which was forthcoming, and then start building a case on the basic MB - 1 difference -- it's operational weapon vs. the other AEC devices to be exploded. At this point, my five Air Force colleagues walked into my office saying they were willing to volunteer to play guineapigs and stand directly under the "genie" burst at Ground Zero, which would be about 13,000 feet above them. JCS Chairman Gen Nathan Twining and Partridge approved, and the scene shifted to Nevada.
Shot day, July 19, 1957, found us busily rigging the coverage to be sure we would have it all. The 'Genie" cost about a quarter million $, and might never be fired short of war again. We had movie cameras, still cameras , a tape recorder. Major Bodinger was wired, mike at his throat, and scheduled to talk the oncoming F-89J, "Genie" loaded plane over him and his four associates. I had taken the cardboard from a fresh shirt just in from the laundry, and finger-painted an inked legend: "GROUND ZERO: Pop. 5 " to which was attached a stake so it could be planted at the volunteers' feet within the picture framing. Right on specified time, the F-89J came on, and the "Genie" streaked ahead of it as the plane did almost a backflip to get away. Bodinger talked of the bright colors of the skyburst above them, which was choked off by the concussion and reverberations of the shock waves us they interfered with his speech and addled the mike's transmission. Then there were shouts from all of them that it had "worked", and their excuberance was hardly containable. That film and that recording became the greatest public reassurers of my memory coupled with one or all of the volunteers on stages or at podiums of service clubs, schools, before church and political groups. It was the highlight presentation, MCed by Cartoonist Milton Cannif (of Steve Canyon) of the Air Force Association convention in Washington day and date with NORAD's being ushered in as a two-nation, regional development under NATO premises.
Some of the coincidences are fascinating. One of the longest running perpetual/nuclear doomsayers has been the editor of Saturday Review, Norman Cousins. He and Norman Bodinger had the same maternal grandfather, from whom they got
their given names. Frank Ball bad been sent to observe an earlier nuclear whammy from one of several special trenches dug deep and at varying distances from blast center. Slated for the trench farthest away, he had made a rather considerable night of it in Las Vegas, got on the wrong early bus to the site. He wound up in the trench closest to the burst, and saw a great deal of Nevada topsoil and debris go sailing six inches over his head. When his time came to stand beneath the "Genie", it was the second such a familiarization course for him There was an un-expected derivative from that "Genie" shot which benefitted everyone in uniform as we released a story about the combined wages of the three service men who loaded the weapon on the F-89J, and armed it, on whom such awesome responsibilities rested. Their combined income was half that of one Las Vegas bartender each month. This found its way into the Congressional Record, and had a marked effect on the vote for the military pay overhaul which was under legislative consideration at the time.
Memory of that morning going out to Yucca Flats includes one of the conversations of the five Air Force volunteers, and one said: "We have to put the requirements for human progress in some kind of perspective. In the 1830s, when a guy first struck a common match during a reception in an old Southern mansion, it caused many grand ladies to faint dead away and for him to be regarded as a dangerous sorcerer. He had the nerve to suggest this was a better way of making fire than the old tinderbox: We're about the same business today."
And then, they went on to Ground Zero and did their thing for human progress and public safety ---and a measure of the national security we still enjoy. For more than two decades, the American public has been at ease with nuke capabilities next door to the delivery systems where they belong, with air defense quality upgraded thereby.
EDITOR's NOTE: How about those movies, stills, tapes? There was a sixth individual under the "'Genie" shot who took all the pictures and saw that the tapes rolled. He always said the captions should have zead: "FIVE BRAVE MEN & ONE CRAZY PHOTOGRAPHER !" His name: George Yoshitake, now a civil service lenser at Vandenberg AFB, Calif. This whole volunteer exploit is done in photo detail at Canaveral, AF Station, Florida, Museum. Yoshitake says all that talk about sterility resulting from proximity with a nuclear burst didn't work
with him. He had one kid before baring his head to the shot, and has had two since.