BACK FROM BIKINI
By FRANK BESWICK, M.P.
THE primary purpose of the Bikini tests, as stated in the directive to Admiral Blandy, was " to determine and measure with pre- cision what happens at various distances when an atom bomb is used against ships and other items of military equipment." This purpose will have been achieved. For both tests large ships of all types, sizes and construction were deployed with great care, and items of almost all conceivable equipment from tanks, aircraft and guns, to food, clothing, comptometers and hot-water bottles were exposed to the effects of the explosion. The measuring and recording of effects could not have been more complete. Administratively the surprisingly complicated operations, truly American in size, were carried through with extraordinary efficiency, and the only incident not according to schedule was when the first bomb, for a reason not yet published, exploded some five hundred yards wide of its intended target.
In addition to information secured for the Service chiefs, the scientists will also have collected and confirmed valuable data, and many small gaps left in the nuclear picture because of inability to collect data after the first three explosions will by now have been filled in. The announcement that the proposed third test will not now be held was expected, since the scientists were confident that they could predict the result of it on the basis of the first two. All that one need add in that connection is that most of the data might well have been secured by less ambitious operations.
Unfortunately the lurid speculations which were aroused by the tests, and not discouraged by the style and scope of the official pub- licity, make it difficult for the general public to get the Operation Crossroads in proper perspective. The Hollywoodian style of official announcements was conspicuous, as for example that on photo- graphy ; after boasting of the number of photographs to be taken- 50,00o stills and 1,5oo,000 feet of movie film apart from Press photo- graphs—the statement goes on " and highlighting all this record equipment will be the world's largest aerial camera. Five feet long, this giant has a 48-inch telephoto lens capable of legibly reading the dial of a wristwatch from a quarter mile away."
Admiral Blandy, too, was accustomed to make prognostications which one would have thought unnecessary. Before the second test he predicted that a column of water half a mile in diameter would be blown 8-io,000 feet in the air and that the ships near the centre were likely to be tossed in the air " in pieces if not together." In fact a column of water 50o yards in diameter was blown some 5,000 feet in the air (suggested explanation was that the flaky nature of lagoon bottom absorbed more of the shock than was calculated) and the ships near the centre, instead of going up, fell down. Indeed, it was thought likely that the 26,10o-ton battleship Arkansas ' and the 33,000-ton aircraft-carrier Saratoga' sank as the result of damage caused by striking the lagoon bed when the water was blasted upwards. The point is that the preparatory publicity was all enlarged upon and written up, and with widespread tales of tidal waves and earthquakes the atmosphere for the first test was,_ to say the least, unduly tense. Indeed, on that morning the recording paraphernalia assembled might have been for the final Judgement Day ; with cameras clicking and whirring, dramatic announcements over the radio and the metronome ticking off the final seconds to the explosion, nothing short of some cosmic catastrophe could have been other than an anti-climax.
The second test, simply as a spectacle, was in itself sufficient to make the long journey worth while. The terrible power behind that gigantic geyser, the turmoil in the lagoon as the huge weight of water fell back again, the implication of the radio-aCtive mist and rain which saturated the target fleet, all seemed of some super- natural pattern beyond the control of man.
But what of the eventual assessment of the Bikini-type atomic bomb? Of the three principal destructive agencies of atomic fission the heat effect was probably less than expected, due to counter-effect of water, vapour and spray. Blast damage will be largely in accord- ance with expectations ; but because at r,000 yards the damage to superstructures was slight, we should not forget that most of u& live in suburban houses of a very different strength from steel-built warships. The shock damage from the under-water detonation was rather more severe, and I think it can be accepted that the effect could still further be increased if the bomb had been detonated lower down in deeper water.
The effects of radio-activity are the least easily assessed without access to all the data, and they are probably the most important of all. The fact which some newspapers headlined, that sheep and goats were munching hay after the first explosion and pig No. 311 was found swimming in the lagoon, may be true. But it was also true that many of these animals subsequently died from the effects of radio-activity. A paragraph in the Hiroshima-Nagasaki report might be re-read in this connection. In an " unusually strong three-storey reinforced concrete building," some 250 yards from the centre of damage, 23 people received lesser injuries, but were able to walk to hospital for treatment. Between the sixth and seventeenth day after the explosion 21 of these people died, probably all from the effects of gamma rays.
In the first test the lethal effect of the direct, so-called gamma, radiation was probably greater than in the second test, though, apart from odd examples such as a packet of strongly radioactive baking- powder found in the middle of a bale of otherwise " safe " quarter- masters' stores, the persistence was slight. In the second test the poisonous fission products were churned into the water instead of rising with the bomb-cloud. The chemical elements of the ocean kept their poisonous properties for some days, and the oil which was freely released from sunk or damaged ships retained this radio- activity to even greater degree.
What does all this amount to? Of course,some alteration to ship design should and will no doubt be carried out, but that, compara- tively, is unimportant. In all probability atom bombs would not be dropped on ships at sea. Why should they be? The Hiroshima bomb killed 8o,000 people and a Bikini type plutonium bomb would kill more if dropped on a similarly populated area. • With ten or twelve bombs simultaneously exploded on selected areas in Britain we can expect casualties of the order of r,000,000 killed and as many more injured. Moreover, the principle of " saturation " which Air Marshal Harris employed to such terrible effect over Germany is here seen to perfection. In Hiroshima, after the one bomb, of 33 fire stations only 6 remained ; of 298 registered physicians only 3o sur- vived to render assistance. It was suggested to me by responsible and completely informed people that fifty atomic bombs of present power and properly placed would make organised human life on our island impossible.
What will it profit us in such circumstances if our warships are re- designed or that we have the desired troops deployed along the Suez Canal? I am not suggesting that under this threat we should embark weakly upon a policy of appeasement of the old sort. I do, however, suggest that it is worth while concentrating upon what is probably the most serious point of difference and strive to establish agreement upon that, and consequently the confidence which will make the other problems easier of solution.
As a condition of any sane conception of the future we must surely have some international agreement on the development of atomic energy. The Russian attitude in this connection is admittedly dis- couraging. Russians are suspicious of the extraordinarily progressive proposals put forward by the United States, and it is possible that their suspicions are not without foundation. The tragedy is that whilst the failure to achieve effective agreement on atomic energy is due to lack of confidence, that lack of confidence is itself partly due to the way in which we kept this development to ourselves. The Russians with whom I discussed our difficulties would admit their "iron curtain," but pointed out that there was also the Anglo-U.S. " uranium curtain." And all the evidence coming from the United States suggests that Mr. Churchill especially was insistent that, as a matter of principle, this uranium curtain should be drawn as closely as possible. With the unwholesome outlook which the Russians, have developed after 27 years of restricted mental liberty they pay undue attention to the errors we have made in the past.
Our responsibility for dissipating these suspicions is therefore the greater, but I fear that on the Atomic Energy Commission at any rate we are not measuring up to that responsibility. Our lack of en- thusiasm-and initiative has certainly disappointed some of our Ameri- can friends. At the scientific level on which we might have made an attempt to establish real contact with the Russians we have had no continuity of representation. Sir James Chadwick, Sir George Thompson and Dr. Penney appeared in succession ; each stayed for only a few weeks. For the most important period of the sitting of the scientific sub-committee we had only temporary representation.
It seems clear that we are as yet only on the edge of this fascinating new field of nuclear fission. At this moment its development ;s a threat to the existence of social life on this island ; at the same time I believe it offers one most valuable oppottunity for establishing genuine international confidence. I am convinced that this oppor- tunity is worthy of even greater attention than our Government - have as yet been able to give it.
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