Operation Castle
1954
Portland Oregon Atomic Veterans
Ed Nasan
Ed Nasan, perhaps more than any other of the one million or so residents of Portland, Ore., knows what the end of the world would look like, should thermonuclear weapons ever be used in war.
During a telephone conversation I told Ed I had found some photographs of some of the shots he saw. Then I read him a list of the Castle shots: Bravo, Romeo, Koon, Union, Yankee, Nectar. "Those last two were the A-bombs, I think," he said. "Cause we all laughed at the small detonations.
"I was part of the Command Task Group 7.3, Boat Pool that was transported to Bikini on the Bellegrove LSD 2.
"Do you know what an ABR is?" he asked.
"No, tell me," I said.
"It's an airplane rescue boat. When I got there I was assigned to the boat pool group, brought over on an amphibious ship and put on an ABR and we would chase the seaplanes as they would bring in the scientists. They had monitoring stations and then they would check the instruments. We would take the Admiral if he wanted to go for a ride. We were rolling all around there after the shots so they could see some of the damage."
His mention of the word "scientist," reminded me of a book by Bernard O'Keefe. I told him about the book and how O'Keefe was one of the men who detonated the weapons. His voice is the one reading the countdown in some of the old test films.
I told him that I had read that Bravo "went-big" (a phrase used by the scientists for a shot that was larger than planned). Ed said, "That's why we all got caught in the fallout and that's when I said I could see the bones in my arm. You are so overwhelmed with the heat of the shot, and looking at it, watching it go up and up and up, like a missile. You could see the shockwave coming by the way it made the water rustle and someone would say 'Here it comes!' and then the big snap! It was horrible in your ears. Then after the shot, life would go on. After the second or third shot it was just one of those things."
"When you were to watch the shots, were you out on the deck?"
"Yes, absolutely. When it became time to fire the shots we went back to the Bellegrove. We were no closer than 25 miles away."
"Did you have the dark goggles?"
"Sometimes. Sometimes not."
I asked, "Did you have your back to it?"
"No, were were forward on the ship and we just bent our head over and put our arm over our eyes.
"I want to mention the evaporators were taken out of the USS Estes which was the Flagship over there and I imagine several others, because they were so radioactive. Everybody was drinking radioactive water. One way or the other."
--Keith Whittle
Friday, July 18, 1997