From: frankw9@verizon.net
Subject: Re: Re: Operation Crossroads
To: Keith pdxavets@aracnet.com
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2007
I participated in Operation Crossroads as an Ensign attached to JTF1.2.7, attached to the USS Achomawi, ATF 148 TAD for the duration of the tests.
I was on the flying bridge of the Achamawi when the Sakawa sank on our tow wire.
An Ensign in the navy is the lowest commissioned rank, equivalent to a 2nd. Lieutenant in the army. That was me at the time of Operations Crossroads. I had received my commission the previous August (1945) and had spent the next six months at the Navy Ship Salvage School in New York and so was ordered to Joint Task Force 1, the Operation Crossroads task force as an assistant salvage officer. It was in that position that I was assigned temporary duty aboard the USS Achamawi ATF 148. That was to be my primary duty on the Achamawi but I also, after having stood Junior Officer of the Deck watches on board the ship that took me from San Diego to Pearl Harbor, stood underway Officer of the Deck watches. I might have been assigned other collateral duties on the Achamawi, but if so I can’t remember what they were.
Fortunately, or unfortunately whatever the case may be the Achamawi did little or no actual salvage work at Bikini. Instead we spent our time moving various ships of the target array into position prior to each test. Just before test Able we moved the landing craft that was supposed to be the bomb carrier for test Baker into a floating dry-dock. It was rumored but never substantiated to my knowledge that the test Baker bomb was already in place on it when we moved it. Even so, the maneuver was carried out very carefully.
On the day after test Able we were ordered to move the Japanese cruiser Sakawa out of the target array, as it was listing to port. Due to its position in the array the Achamawi had go along the high (starboard) side of the Sakawa with our stern toward the bow of the Sakawa. Then we were supposed to spin the Sakawa around to starboard and tow it out of the array. It was when the spin move started that the Sakawa started rolling over to port when it sank on our tow wire. Needless to say the tow wire was cut and the Achamawi got away from the sinking Sakara.
On the day of test Baker, the Achamawi, as were all ships, other than the target ships of the Task Force steaming some distance away outside the atoll. We were near enough that we could see the target array and saw the explosion or at least the big mushroom of water blown into the air by the explosion. Here my memory is a bit hazy but I believe that the salvage task unit, of which the Achamawi was a part, was allowed back into Bikini atoll but were sent to an anchorage in a remote part of the atoll due to the high degree of radioactivity of the water nearer the target array. It was from that point that the skipper of the Achamawi and I watched the USS Saratoga sink. Once it was determined that the surviving ships of test Baker were to be moved to Kwajalein, the Achamawi spent quite a bit of time shuttling back and forth between Bikini and Kwajalein with one or another of the target ships at the end of our tow wire. I remember when we were towing one of the old battleships the rudder of the battleship was jammed hard aport so instead of towing behind us, it rode on our port quarter the entire way.
I guess maybe I one of the lucky ones. I am now 82 years of age and have had no illnesses that can be attributed to my participation in Operation Crossroads. I did have an enlarged (overactive) thyroid in 1952 which was determined to be benign after a subtotal thyroidectomy. In 1993 I was diagnosed with an enlarged prostate, that likewise was determined to be benign after surgery.
I have always considered my experiences during Operation Crossroads, the memories of which are getting rather dim now, as one of the high points of my naval career.
Thank you,
Frank T West
LT USNR-Ret
Blacksburg, VA 24060
Email:frankw9@verizon.net
[ Operation Crossroads ]