Dear Harold & Betty Jo,

I'm going to write this to you because it is so selfish of myself to expect our older son, Doug to set aside his time to do it on his computer. You see, Doug is the President & Chief Executive Officer of two corporations. He and his wife have 6 children all at home, the oldest being 14. He really wanted to do this, but as you can see, his time is severely limited between his business and his family.

I want to thank you both for sending me the photos and copies of the Wetokian. Dredging up incidents from my past (45 years ago) is not an easy task, however, attached to this thank you letter are some occasions that may be of interest to your readers. On every assignment the service deals out, there are some pluses and some minuses. As you know from previous discussions, I was part of the original crew that established the Field Maintenance Shop at Hickam Field, Honolulu, Hawaii. Three of us in that shop spent quite a lot of time on assignment to Eniwetok, rotating in and out, primary on 90 day stints, but some were longer.

Thinking about some of the pluses on Wetok, the very best one was the working relationship with a great bunch of guys, Sigler, Ingram, Butkus, and others. These guys were greatly motivated and team/mission oriented. When the Joint Task Force Command announced D-24 (Detonation time, minus 24 hours and counting), these guys knew that they were expected to work non-stop until the test was completed. This meant filling those huge balloons with hydrogen, attaching the instruments, launching one run after another until the atomic device was detonated. It also meant beating the clinkers out of the generating tanks, and regenerating hydrogen. These guys missed chow, missed sleep, missed mail call (among other things), yet they kept right on working. All of these guys had the "right stuff."

I'll never forget seeing those B-29 bombers move up to the end of the runway by the Rawinsonde shack and go through warm-up of their four engines, without a soul inside of them! As you well know, these were drone aircraft that had a ground controller that taxied them out for takeoff, began their ground roll and lift off, and then a sister ship flew over and controlled the drone, steering it over the test site to collect samples of air to measure radiation. One time they used a B-36 as a drone. Talk about an awesome spectacle!

Another plus was the fact my tours were limited, and I could go back to Hickam and the family, and the pursuit of my hobby, driving a stock car. That was fun but not very profitable, since there was no sponsor.

I remember watching the RAWIN operators chase the altitude record (when there was no test scheduled). They would inspect every inch of that huge balloon looking for weak spots, soak it in hot water so the stretching it went through at high altitudes wouldn't cause premature bursting, fill it slowly, attach the instrument, launch. and go about the run with so much enthusiasm it was infectious!

I think the altitude record at that time was set by a Tinker Field outfit on Majuro at 110,000 feet. I remember one time they had just passed the 107,000 ft. level and I think they had crossed fingers and toes, thinking this run was going to do it! Then the signals started coming in fast, showing the balloon had burst, and now the instrument was descending, transmitting the same atmospheric pressures that it gave while ascending. The next day I expected to see a dejected crew of guys, but that wasn't the case. They got prepared for another run with the same enthusiasm.

For me, the most outstanding plus on my tour of duty in the South Pacific was observing this total dedication to duty. As a matter of fact, in the photo you sent me, the Certificates of Achievement were earned by the operators, not SSGT Williams, SSGT Sapp, nor Captain Thorpe.

I do have fond memories of our dog Caustic, her son Samson, and even the island bully Shithead. These dogs were morale boosters for the guys who were on permanent assignment to Wetok.

On the negative side of the coin, who would miss the heat, the blowing sand, or living in an eight man tent near the Equator. I also don't miss brushing the sand off my cot before going to bed. The attempt to shave was a problem also. When I shaved I would forget the pieces of toilet paper I'd stuck on my face to stop the bleeding of razor cuts. Of course the guys weren't going to say anything to me, what else was there to laugh about? I don't miss needing a continuously burning light bulb in my wall locker to ward off the fungus. How about needing a diversion so bad you were willing to sit in the outdoor theatre in a tropical downpour to see a cheap, low production movie? I remember one of those "Cowboys and Indians" flicks where the chief lit a fire in his teepee with a Zippo lighter ! If you knew someone who wasn't going to the movie and owned one of those African Safari pith helmets, and you knew it was going to rain, you had to hustle to his area to borrow it. With one of these helmets on, you could steeple your hands on the brim and the water would run down the back of your arms so you could see the crummy movie. Some of the island's dog population would crawl up under the movie seats to stay dry. Inevitably, there'd be a dog fight during the film and you'd have to pull up your legs to let them fight through. Someone was always on the lookout for Shithead's location, because he usually started the whole mess. He didn't like the crummy movies either!

Who would miss the Duffy's tavern fights? Usually, these fights were just to let off steam with the combatants making up afterward and sharing a couple of Lucky Lagers. I don't miss the confrontations with the Captain either! It seemed I stood at attention and got my ass chewed on Eniwetok more than I did in basic training.

I think there was always some uneasiness about, because of the accidental fallout on Rongerik, no one knew if some rogue air mass would reverse itself and drop radiation on Wetok. I also think that the inability to find out the fate of the men on Rongerik, and to have some idea as to how much background radiation each of us had recorded on our dosimeters was also unsettling. I'm sure the X-Ray technicians at the hospitals were better informed than we ever were.

There was so much secrecy about the Rongerik crew that it pissed a lot of us guys off. These were fellow weathermen, and when you asked anyone about them, there was silence and shrugged shoulders. It was as if they had dropped off the face of the earth. We only knew that they had been taken to Kwajalein Naval base.

Well, Harold and Betty Jo, I'm going to write the Eniwetok/Rongerik story now and attach it to this letter.

I hope the year 2000 brings each of you the best of health and prosperity, in that order.

John Sapp
6463 Carriage Lane
Reynoldsburg, OH 43068

|| Articles || Mail Box || Notices & News || Bios || Viewpoints || || Home Page || Email: Harold Wainscott || || Atomic Veterans History Project ||

---

© 1999. All rights reserved.