The Bikini Atoll — Us Nuclear Test Site
What are the effects of nuclear weapons on naval vessels?
Under the code name “Operation Crossroads”, the US Navy conducted the first series of nuclear tests in the summer of 1946 at the Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific. It was the beginning of an unprecedented nuclear race. Let’s take a look at the events of the time.
What happened before
Already on 16 July 1945, American scientists detonated an atomic bomb near Alamogordo in the New Mexico desert. Scarcely three weeks later, on 6 August 1945, “Little Boy”, a nuclear bomb of 15 kilotons of TNT made of enriched uranium, was dropped over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on 9 August, the United States dropped “Fat Man”, a plutonium nuclear bomb with a force of 21 kilotons of TNT, on the port city of Nagasaki, marking the end of the war in the Pacific.
The first nuclear tests
The US Navy, however, was not satisfied and wanted to take a closer look at the effects of nuclear weapons on naval vessels. Spurred on by Rear Admiral Lewis Strauss (1896–1974) and Senator Brien McMahon…
