National Association of Atomic Veterans Portland Area Atomic Veterans Operation Crossroads Radiation-Soaked Retired Naval Commander Lies Broke, Dying In Virginia Home. From The Oregonian Monday, August 23, 1965 NORFOLK, Va. (AP) -- A retired American naval officer, one of the few Americans ever to suffer an overdose of atomic radiation, lies dying at his home in Norfolk. He is broke, heavily in debt and his sacrifice in the line of duty is unrecognized by fame or medals. He is Cmdr. William W. Mitchell, USN (Ret.). He is 65 years old but he looks 85, for he has suffered much since 5:35 p.m. on July 24, 1946 That was the hour at which the United States exploded an atomic bomb underwater at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. The underwater explosion was one of a series of postwar atomic tests. In Washington, weekend duty officers at the Pentagon had no access to records which would include Mitchell's file, and they had no comment on his case. In Norfolk, Mitchell said the information in his case had been classified by the Navy from the begining and had never been made public. Here is Mitchell's account of what happened after the Bikini explosion: Some 75 warships and 12 smaller craft took part in the tests. Mitchell was engineer officer aboard the observation ship USS Warton. Ship Enters Area Half and hour after the atomic explosion sent a column of water half a mile wide at the base a mile into the air, the Wharton cruised into ground zero, checking radioactivity and making other scientific measurements. Then began one of the most bizarre chains of circumstances of the atomic age. First a pump failed in the Wharton's engine room The pump failure caused a condenser failure and the engine room filled with steam. The ship went dead in the water, only a few feet from ground zero, and lay dead there for an hour while repairs were made. The Captain ordered the machinist responsible for the pump failure court-martialed for neglect of duty. The machinist had been told to replace the pump but had not done so. Mitchell was appointed defense counsel for the machinist. A key piece of evidence in the court-martial was a bronze valve. The valve was directly exposed to the sea water during the entire sequence of events, hence it soaked up a tremendous dose of radioactivity from the very water in which the bomb had been exploded. Since the valve was a piece of defensive evidence, Mitchell took it to his room for safekeeping. He put it under his bed and it stayed there the entire five weeks prior to the court-martial. In 1946, no one knew much about the hazards of radiation and Mitchell's action by 1946 standards were perfectly logical. By the time the officers and crew of the Wharton were checked with a Geiger counter in Bremerton, Wash., several weeks later, Mitchell's body made the counter buzz like a rattlesnake. They checked his blood count but it was still normal. They released him with the suggestion that he have a blood count taken periodically. Then they sent him and his ship to China. Treatment Ordered The next year, while he was on duty at Pearl Harbor, he learned his blood count was droppong. By this time medical science had a much better idea of what an overdose of radiation meant. Michell was ordered to San Francisco for treatment. There he began to suffer severe hemorrhaging. He bled from every opening in his body and through the pores of his skin. They couldn't X-ray him. His body was so hot that the X-ray film came out black. It would be four years before he would "cool" enough to be X-rayed successfully. He was transferred the Navy's Medical Research Center at Bethesda, Md., where he stayed a year. There he received blood transfusion as the doctors fought to prevent leukemia. Finally, in 1949, he was well enough to be released from Bethesda. The Navy gave him a medical discharge. He settled in Norfolk and took a position as secretary and business manager of the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association. On the side he started raising hamsters which he sold to government and private agencies for medical research. At one time he was raising and selling as many as 40,000 hamsters a year in the backyard of his home. His blood pressure remained high. He often had severe cramps in his legs (radiation attacks the bone marrow), and he had to go in for a transfusion about every three months. But he was determined to make his own way and his hamster business thrived. Five years ago his condition began to worsen. In five years his body aged 20 years, but he still hung on to his hamster business. Last year be borrowed heavily to upgrade his hamster-raising facilities to meet new government specifications. On June 21 of this year he suffered a severe stroke. The doctors say he may die in a day, in a month or in a year. Meanwhile he exists on a monthly government allowance of $383.02-$292.02 in retired pay and $92 in Social Secutity payments. He had to sell out his hamster business at a loss and he and his wife are now in danger of losing their home to satisfy the debts he had incurred to upgrade his facilities. The debts worry him more than his coming death, which he accepts calmly and talks about matter-of-factly. "I wish," said Mrs. Mitchell, "that they would spend some of that foreign aid money to help a man who has truly tried to help his country." Mitchell has willed his eyes to the blind and his radiation poisoned body to science. 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