Operation Crossroads - Lest We Forget! An Eyewitness Account, Bikini Atomic Bomb Tests 1946

After Trinity, Hiroshima, and Nagaski...

On 1 July 1946, millions of people around the world waited anxiously by their radios for the results of the first postwar atomic bomb test, code name Operation CROSSROADS. No one knew what to expect.

Less than a year earlier, in August 1945, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9), thus effectively ending World War II in the Pacific. Now the U.S. military wanted to test the effects of this powerful nuclear weapon on vessels, equipment, and material. Two tests were planned in the summer of 1946: Test Able from the air on 1 July and Test Baker from underwater on 25 July. The location chosen for the tests was the remote Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

William L. McGee, USN, was one of 42,000 military, scientists, and civilian personnel assembled at Bikini for Operation Crossroads. He had a front row seat for the tests from aboard the USS Fall River (CA-131), Flagship for the Target Fleet, responsible for positioning the 90-plus target vessels in the Bikini Lagoon.

The author adds to his eyewitness observation of Crossroads entries from the Fall River ship log, interviews with shipmates and other Crossroads participants, and the later opinions of Crossroads experts.

In the author's words: "Operation Crossroads in 1946 was one of the most important events of the twentieth century. I wrote this book to help preserve a part of history few know about todaythe dawning of the nuclear age."

Award-winning Pacific war historian William L. McGee is a World War II and atomic veteran. His book, Pacific Express: The Critical Role of Military Logistics in World War II, is on the Marine Corps Commandant's Professional Reading List. Another book, The Solomons Campaigns, 1942-1943: From Guadalcanal to Bougainville, won the Silver Medal for History from the Military Writers Society of America.

134 pp, 52 B&W photographs & illustrations
BMC Publications (2016)

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