Eniwetak/Enewtok

[472x1B/A]

Anyone on the forum here ever been to Eniwetak atoll? This is in the Marshall Islands, chain.

[Echo]

No, but I saw the movie "Operation Ivy", about the first Hydrogen bomb, an apparatus named "Mike", that, when detonated, wiped out an island and dug a crater that would hold about 20 pentagon buildings. All happened on the Enewetak atoll...

[waynem34]

Wow. guess. duck. ****. ohcrap. duckcrap. layflat.

[Lee]

Remember as a kid, being told to squat under the desk, hands over the head. (The Russkies you know!) The only thing they forgot to mention was to curl up and kiss your kiester goodbye ..... :shock:

[Forty Rod Ray]

There was a tv ad with the jingle to "Duck and cover.... " . There was more to the jingle, but time has now dusted over in my memory. Big interest was in the 55 Chevy hi-comp engine, the Chrysler "hemi", or my Md 70 222 Hornet.... I had rescued my first rifle, a Grffin and Howe conversion of a Mo 70 Hornet to 222 Remington. The barrel had been bobbed. The stock was abused, but it was first class, and took many crow and turtle....

[dbh1956]

Never made it to Eniwetok Atoll, but I lived at Kwajalein Atoll from 2002 to 2007. Stopped off in Majuro a few times on the way between Hawaii and Kwaj. The Marshallese are nice people. You can google "The Marshall Islands Journal" and see it online. Kwajalein has its own paper "The Hourglass", also available online.

[Bzcraig]

My dad was aboard the USS Denebola off Enewtok before his enlistment was up on 1946. He has talked about taking part in a nuclear/hydrogen bomb that was detonated at sea near there. Though I don't remember specifically how far away they were, I do remember thinking to myself, dang that was too close.

[Fergie]

My sister-in-law is Marshallese...from Kwaj. Most of her family lives there still.

Also have a buddy working as an archaeologist on the atoll right now. I could forward on any questions you might have if you'd like.

[Duckiller]

Doesn't it still glow in the dark? Thought the H-bomb test made it uninhabitable for a looooong time?

[Kent Fowler]

Remember as a kid, being told to squat under the desk, hands over the head. (The Russkies you know!) The only thing they forgot to mention was to curl up and kiss your kiester goodbye ..... :shock:

A few old friends and I were talking about the nuclear drills we had in elementary school in the late 50's Its amazing how politically aware we were back then and how afraid we were as children. I watched the news with my parents at an early age. We lived about 50 miles from the only plant that made all the nuclear weapons for the U.S. government and were very much aware that the plant would be heavily targeted if the we and Soviets had a nuclear exchange. We figured the Soviets also had the big natural gas pumping stations and the pipelines in the Texas panhandle targeted. I saw the movie " On The Beach" when I was 9 which scared the heck out of me and it didn't help too much when we saw Khrushchev on the news and his antics at the U.N. Can remember when Castro came to power in '59 and very well remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. I used to come home from school to have lunch with my mother and we watched the noon news. They always gave a daily tally on the American KIA in Viet Nam which was extremely depressing. A lot of these kids today, including my own, don't know how lucky they are.

[472x1B/A]

My sister-in-law is Marshallese...from Kwaj. Most of her family lives there still.

Also have a buddy working as an archaeologist on the atoll right now. I could forward on any questions you might have if you'd like.

Thank you. If you can, ask him if the people there can eat the coconuts yet? When I was stationed there we could be sent back to our duty station and discharged if caught eating them.

[chboats]

I was on a USN LPH (helo carrier) anchored in the harbor in the late 70s. We were there to pick up some heavy equipment they were using to clean it up. They were getting it ready to move some of the people back to the island. Never got ashore though.

Carl

[kfarm]

Oh yea duck and cover air raid drills on Wednesday at noon. My sis worked for the state police and had a civil defense license plate kool stuff there, most department stores had CD shelters. Life in it 50's and early 60's was great, no worries we'll except for those pesky Russian icbms.

[472x1B/A]

Well! Eniwetak = Enewetak = Enewetok. If I remember right there was 13 different ways to spell the name of this atoll. I was lucky enough to be stationed here from Jan. 12, 1979 till June 29, 1979. It was the 'best' assignment of my military career. Average temp was 113*, but the wind blew 24-7. It was 2.1 miles long and 700 yds at its widest point. The sunsets were just like in a postcard. Was the only Air Force vehicle mechanic there. I had it made with 12 fuel trucks to take care of. Wish I was still there and think of it everyday.

[dbh1956]

I can't imagine they would let the Marshallese people move back 24/7 unless the coconuts, breadfruit, etc was safe to eat. I understood thats what kept people off Bikini Atoll. You can visit Bikini and dive but can't eat anything that grows there. Rongelap is another atoll that had to be evacuated (not a pretty story-wind changed and the people had ash fallout from a test) but has been restored and people returned in the last 10-15 years.

[willie_pete]

My dad was aboard the USS Denebola off Enewtok before his enlistment was up on 1946. He has talked about taking part in a nuclear/hydrogen bomb that was detonated at sea near there. Though I don't remember specifically how far away they were, I do remember thinking to myself, dang that was too close.

The Crossroads test happened in 1946 off Bikini Atoll. It wasn't a hydrogen bomb as they were not developed until later.

wP

[dbh1956]

67! This is from the U.S. Embassy to the Marshall Islands website:
The United States conducted 67 nuclear explosive tests in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958. In 1962, the United States halted atmospheric nuclear explosive tests, like those conducted in the Marshall Islands, and ended all nuclear explosive testing in 1992. President Barack Obama announced in Prague in 2009 that the long-term goal of the United States is a world without nuclear weapons. The President remains committed to a worldwide ban on all nuclear explosive testing and Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Nuclear explosive testing was deemed to be critical during the Cold War and we honor the contribution the people of the Marshall Islands made to America’s international security goals.
Twenty-three tests were conducted on Bikini Atoll, and 44 were conducted on or near Enewetak Atoll. The hydrogen bomb test on March 1, 1954, code-named Castle Bravo, far exceeded the size expected by scientists. This factor, combined with shifting wind patterns, sent some of the radioactive fallout over the inhabited atolls of Rongelap and Utrik. Within 52 hours, the 86 people on Rongelap and 167 on Utrik were evacuated to Kwajalein for medical care. The Marshallese living on Utrik returned permanently a few months later, while those on Rongelap returned in 1957 but chose to leave again in 1985.

[w5pv]

Hard to imagine a weapon with th destruction power that a hydrogen bomb has,it seems to me that I have read that some have a 200 mile radius where everything is destroyed.

[fouronesix]

I don't know about the 200 mi radius thing. I know that at least one of the US fusion bombs tested did yield more than expected. The exact numbers may never be known but IIRC the largest tested by US was in the 10-20 megaton equivalent yield range. But at some point, accurate and reliable delivery becomes more important than yield.

The Russians (Soviets) tested their largest fusion bomb, "Tsar", in '61 off an island in northwestern Russia. It was air dropped and had an estimated yield of 50 megatons. While the Russians were making a cold war statement with the test and some of the politicians and military wanted to "test" an even larger bomb (100 megaton)... key Soviet scientists got a little uneasy and cooler heads prevailed. Likely they knew they were getting into "scary" territory even at 50 megatons.

pic of Tsar bomb test and there are youtube videos of it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNYe_UaWZ3U

[Fergie]

Per my buddy...coconuts are safe to eat, as well as other fruits.

The restriction was mainly in place to keep service members from depleting the amount of local food available to the locals.

[472x1B/A]

Thank you Fergie. But, does this restriction deal with Kwajalein atoll or Enewetak atoll? Unless the Chief on Enewetok has given the United States goverment permission to have military personel there, there hasn't been any 'troops' there since 1980 or 1981.

I know this for a fact. When I was there I was able to meet and talk to him. He told us that he nor anybody taking his place, the new chief, would never let any military on there islands ever again, no matter what. He wasn't mad at us, the ones that were there at the time, because we were cleaning up his islands after our goverment had destroyed them.

Every single coconut tree standing, while I was there , was suppose to be cut down and replaced with 100 new ones brought in from Hawaii as seedlings. This is why I asked if the people on Enewetok were able to now eat the coconuts. All roads, hangers, barracks, support buildings, fuel tanks, everything except the runway was suppose to be removed from the island when the cleanup was completed.

P S. Our goverment even had an olympic sized swiming pool built for our enjoyment. Filled with filtered sea water even.

P P S. Did I say that this was the best TDY/assignment I had in my military career?