Over
a lengthy period of time, the United States has conducted several hundred
nuclear tests; high level and low level nuclear tests in the atmosphere and
also at ground level, as well as underground and underwater tests. It was back in the month of July 1946, 69
years ago, that the United States conducted a series of atomic tests over the
islands of Bikini in the Marshall Islands, halfway between Hawaii and the
Philippine Islands.
Bikini Atoll is made up of a score
of small islets and this area was chosen due to its isolated location, as well
as several other factors including very low human habitation. The July 1946 tests were conducted under the
code name Operation Crossroads which involved hundreds of ships and planes and
thousands of personnel. In fact, in
preparation for the Bikini tests, 42,000
Americans swarmed around Bikini and nearby locations to make ready all of the
circumstances associated with the experimental atomic explosions.
In order to provide international
news coverage for newspapers, TV and radio, a total of five American navy
vessels were equipped with all sorts of electronic equipment that would enable
live and recorded news to be forwarded across the Pacific to all parts of the
world.
The first of these five
communication ships was the USS “Appalachian” which
was launched at Kearny New Jersey on January 29, 1943. This United States navy vessel saw service in
the Pacific, and in 1946 it was appointed in charge of media coverage for the
twin atomic explosions at Bikini Atoll.
At the time of the Able Test, the first
atomic detonation 520 feet above Bikini Atoll on July 1, the “Appalachian” was
stationed in the open sea at a safe distance from the blast area. At this stage, the “Appalachian” was
using five different shortwave channels, though each was on the air with a
quite low power output. The callsign for
this ship was NCLG.
Because of the difficult shortwave
coverage from NCLG at the time of the first test explosion, the Able Test on
July 1, this ship was sent back to Honolulu where new higher powered
transmitters were installed. Thus, when
the second detonation, Baker B Test, took place three weeks later on July 25,
the USS “Appalachian” was
now on the air with two transmitters at 600 watts and one at 350 watts, though
this would still be considered to be inadequate for reliable relay
coverage. To compensate for this
problem, the “Spindle
Eye” NIGF
was stationed at Honolulu on the day of the second detonation as a relay point
between NCLG “Appalachian” at
Bikini and the United States mainland.
Just one year after these atomic
tests, the “Appalachian” was
decommissioned, and twelve years later again, it was sold for scrap.
The second ship in today’s program is the USS “Mount
McKinley”,
a navy vessel that was launched from Wilmington North Carolina on September 27,
1943. Originally named the “Cyclone”,
it was renamed “Mount McKinley” exactly
three months later.
This navy transport ship also saw
service in the Pacific, and in 1946 she operated as a flagship in the Marshall
Islands for Operation Crossroads. A 350
watt transmitter with the callsign NICO was on the air with live voice
broadcasts giving the progressive information about the atomic explosions at
Bikini Atoll; in the air on July 1 and under water on July 25. In addition, NICO was heard on another
occasion with the broadcast of a live church service.
At the end of an illustrious career
spanning 34 years, during which she saw service in
several different world areas, the “Mount McKinley” was
sold for scrap in 1976.
The third ship in our
story today is the USS “Panamint”,
which was also launched at Wilmington North Carolina on November 9, 1943, as
the “Northern
Light”. Early in the New Year 1944, the “Northern
Light” was
acquired by the navy, it was converted at the Hoboken yards in New Jersey for
use as a general communications vessel, and it was renamed the USS “Panamint”. This ship also saw active service in the
Pacific.
In 1946, the “Panamint” was
ordered to the Marshall Islands where she served as the floating headquarters
for congressional, scientific and United Nations observers, several of whom
made radio broadcasts from the ship as part of the media coverage for the
atomic events. This ship was on the air
under the callsign NXHC.
On the day of the second
atomic test, the underwater Baker test on July 25, the details of the actual
explosion were broadcast live by Clete Roberts over transmitter NXHC aboard the
USS “Panamint”. This live description was listed as part of
the pool broadcast that was carried by all of the involved media, including the
Voice of America.
During the next year 1947, the “Panamint” was
decommissioned from navy usage, and she was sold for scrap fourteen years
later.
The fourth radio ship that
participated in the Crossroads atomic tests was the USS “Blue
Ridge” which
had been launched from the shipyards at
Kearny in New Jersey on March 7, 1943.
Later that same year, she left for a cruise in the South Pacific and she
saw action during the American landings on the island of Leyte in the
Philippines in October 1944.
The “Blue
Ridge”,
with the American navy callsign NTAE, also participated in radio communications
at Bikini in July 1946. Fourteen years
later, she was struck from the naval records and sold for scrap.
In our topic today, we now come to ship number 5,
the USS “Spindle
Eye”. Plans for this new radio ship were developed
during the year 1944, and it was originally intended for use during the
projected invasion of Japan.
This new radio ship was laid down in
the Kaiser shipyards at Richmond, near San Francisco in California, and it was
launched with the unassuming name “Spindle Eye”
on May 25, 1945. The ship was nearly 340
feet long and 50 feet wide, with a total unladen weight of four thousand tons.
Originally, the “Spindle
Eye”
was designed for use as an army cargo ship, but it was repurposed quite quickly
and fitted out at the Todd shipyards in Seattle Washington with a bevy of
electronic equipment. Aboard this ship
were two radio studios, six shortwave transmitters, eight antennas, and 112
typewriters. Four of the shortwave
transmitters were 3 kW units made by Wilcox, and the broadcast quality
transmitter at 7½ kW was made by RCA at their Camden
Factory in New Jersey.
The first series of test broadcasts
from the “Spindle
Eye”
were made at the dockside shipyards in Seattle from the 7½ kW
RCA transmitter during the first half of the month of September 1945. Then, on September 19, after just 64 days of
fitting out, the ship moved out across the Pacific, bound for Japan.
The “Spindle
Eye”
arrived in Tokyo Harbor on October 15, and it took over the radio services
previously carried by WVLC aboard the “Apache” which was still in the Philippines at
the time. The “Spindle
Eye”
was inspected by General Douglas MacArthur, after which it made a test tour in
the waters of China and Korea. It was
reported that the electronics aboard the “Spindle Eye”
were working well.
On return to Japan just before
Christmas, the “Spindle Eye”
under the transferred callsign WVLC, began a series of broadcasts on behalf of
the Voice of America and the American Armed Forces Radio Service. In addition, news dispatches from the 1946
war crimes trials in Tokyo were relayed from the “Spindle
Eye”
to the United States for nationwide rebroadcast.
Extensive plans were made for live
radio coverage of the first detonation at Bikini which took place on July 1,
1946. Ships, airplanes and land vehicles
were staged at strategic locations on the Marshall Islands and in nearby
waters. A total of 150 radio
transmitters and 300 receivers were in use for the co-ordination of the atomic
detonation and for the broadcast of live news reports. One of the major news reporters for the
occasion was Oliver Read who was, at that time, editor of the American radio
journal, Radio News, and he published three large articles in his magazine.
The
quite new “Spindle
Eye”
was given the task of co-ordinating all of the news transmissions from
Operation Crossroads, including voice broadcasts, press dispatches and radio
photos. For this purpose, the “Spindle
Eye”
was located off the coast of Kwajalein Island and the callsign WVLC was
replaced by the navy callsign NIGF. The
broadcasts from NIGF were beamed to RCA Bolinas in California and to Press
Wireless Los Angeles, also in California, for onward relay.
On
Able-Day July 1, program broadcasts from NIGF “Spindle
Eye”
began at 3:30 am local time with live news reports to NBC and CBS in the United
States. At 9:00 am, the first atom bomb
was dropped over Bikini Atoll from the air force B29 plane identified with the
large tail marker “B”.
At this stage, two voice transmitters on the “Spindle
Eye”
were on the air in parallel with all of the live news reports, the 7½ kW
RCA and a 2½ kW
Wilcox. Subsequently the Wilcox was
diverted for the transmission of news photos which were received at the army
station WTJ in Honolulu Hawaii and relayed onward to the army station in San
Francisco WVY.
However, in spite of the elaborate
plans for extensive live news coverage from the atomic test areas, there were
times when the voice relays were inferior and difficult to understand. This was due to the fact that the shortwave
transmitters aboard the several ships in the area were quite low in output
power.
Thus, when the underwater test,
Baker, was
conducted 3½ weeks
later, the radio ship “Spindle Eye”
was located at Honolulu, as a relay point between the atomic test sites in the
Marshall Islands and the American mainland.
On July 25 for the underwater explosion, “Spindle
Eye”
NIGF received the shortwave reports from Bikini and relayed this programing on
to RCA Bolinas and to Press Wireless Los Angeles for further distribution.
After the twin atomic tests, the
Spindle Eye returned to the Pacific coast of the United States and the usage of
the transmitter as WVLC-NIGF came to an end at the end of the year 1946. One year later, the “Spindle
Eye”
was renamed the “Sgt Curtis F. Shoup" and it was
in use in the Pacific and then later again in the Mediterranean. The ship known as “Spindle
Eye”
and “Sgt
Curtis F. Shoup" was finally sold for scrap on May 9, 1973.
During the two atomic test
detonations at Bikini Atoll, July 1 and 25, 1946, many ships were involved
in the broadcast arrangements for radio coverage and relay. However, these five ships as noted in our
program today were specifically designated as radio communication ships
specifically for the events of Operation Crossroads :-
USS Spindle Eye NIGF 4 @ 3 kW & 1 @ 7½ kW
USS Appalachian NCLG 1 @ 350 watts & 2 @ 600 watts
USS Mount McKinley NICO 1 @ 350 watts
USS Panamint NXHC Low power
USS Blue Ridge NTAE Low power
It is known that a few QSL letters
were issued for the WVLC-NIGF broadcasts, and the Voice of America also issued
their regular QSLs confirming the relay of the atomic tests at Bikini Atoll. In addition, special QSL cards were printed to
honor these atomic tests and these showed an artistic version of the sinking of
a ship.
A few listeners in the
United States, New Zealand and Australia, received QSL letters in
acknowledgement of their reception reports, though many listeners received the
regular QSL card showing an artistic rendition of islands in the Pacific and a
ship sinking nearby.
(AWR-Wavescan/335)