Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999
From: "SULLIVAN, EDMUND" ESULLIVAN@mail.hartford.edu
To: pdxavets@aracnet.com
Subject: Crossroads
My name is Edmund Sullivan, I live in Suffield, Connecticut and I am a retired history professor and museum curator. l was an 18 year old sailor / participant in the U.S. Navy's atomic bomb tests---Operation Crossroads---conducted at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands during the summer of 1946. I volunteered in February and soon after I was assigned to the USS Gilliam, a fairly new attack transport and a designated target ship. She housed scientists and also carried a variety of test instruments.
I was a member of the crew who ferried scientists to their various duties on other target ships. Thus I had opportunities to see and board some splendid ships: the carrier Saratoga; the great old battleships Arkansas, New York and Pennsylvania; the cruisers Salt Lake City and Pensacola; the Japanese battleship Nagato with its strange pagoda-like superstructure, and the beautifully designed German pocket battleship Prinz Eugin---my favorite. Most striking of all was the battleship Nevada painted a bright orangey-red because she was the focal point, or ground zero, for Test Able. The Gilliam was anchored about 50 yards abaft the Nevada's port beam.
On July 1st the world's fourth atomic bomb exploded at an altitude of about 620 feet--off target and closer to the Gilliam than to ground zero. She sank immediately. In 1989 National Parks Service archeologists reported that the Gilliam had been flattened, as if caught in a giant vise, and is virtually unrecognizable. Four more ships sank over the next few hours. I now have the dubious distinction of being a crewmember of the first ship ever sunk by an atomic bomb. I watched Test Able from 15 miles distant as a temporary crewmember of the support ship USS Coasters Harbor, but now I was permanent duty. The Gilliam's sinking may have allowed me to live into what is now my 71st year and perhaps beyond, as subsequent events would demonstrate.
Over the following days target ship crews returned to their ships to assess damage and prepare for Test Baker, a planned underwater explosion on July 25th. While much radiation from Test Able dissipated into the atmosphere and the test itself was labeled a disappointment, shortsightedly, by some of the scientists and journalists (as I read in later years), Test Baker more than compensated for in drama, excitement, and danger. Even at a distance of 8 miles we knew we were seeing nasty history being made when the Test Baker bomb was detonated 90 feet below the surface of the lagoon at 8:35 A.M.
Once again target ship crews returned to their ships, but now exposed from light to dangerous radioactivity because the explosion had dumped back on to the target fleet millions of tons of radiated water and silt. Warnings from scientists (who were a pretty confused bunch themselves), were routinely ignored as crews of mostly young sailors, following orders, "scrubbed" radioactive surfaces. Of course, I had no ship to scrub. It may only be a slight exaggeration to argue that I am alive today because my ship sunk. Even these many years later I get angry when I see photographs taken in the days following the Baker shot of most scientists and officers fully clothed while crewmembers go about their duties in t-shirts and shorts, or shorts only. But even I, on a support ship, at anchor within the lagoon' s test area, was radiated. At one point the crew was lined up as scientists paced by us with Geiger counters. The "clicking" was loud and constant. But not to worry, I know now. My health is excellent as is the health of my children.
In conclusion: (1) my Navy hitch gave me the G I. Bill and my first college degree, (2) I was very lucky. For sure, the leprechauns were smiling on me.
Regards,
Ed Sullivan.
E-Mail ESULLIVAN@mail.hartford.edu
Keith Whittle
March 8, 1999
[ Operation Crossroads ]