Shangri La (CV 38) - Naval Cruise Book

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' l, l rl: , 4 4, T U li fig -fr H5- si sa T....-.,-..........,.,...........a..-...--.......-...-.--....-.. - . used in a single operation. Mounted on huge steel towers, the cameras were fixed to automatically record the various phases of the explosion before closing cement and steel doors to seal in the film from rays which would fo-g and destroy it. Offshore, the Shangri-La and ships of the Support Group steamed in rehearsal for the epochal event. Radio-controlled F-6F's left her decks to traverse pre- established routes under the guidance of mother planes, while Army B-29's and drone B-l7's were flown from airflelds at Roi, perfecting the timing precision so vital to the mission's success, True to aerologists' predictions, the morning of July l, 1946, found the skies covered with heavy cumulus clouds. However, the tropic sun burned off the cloud layer as forecast, o-ccasioning only a half-hour delay. The big B-29, Dave's Dream, parachuted the bomb towards the battleship Nevada, standing out from her war-gray sisters in a boiledflobster paint job. The brilliant flash was visible to watchers aboard the Shangri-La, at sea forty-four miles away. Through an inferno that beggars description, the Navy and Army drones flew unwaveringly at various predetermined heights. One Shangri-La drone was feared lost until picked up by radar ninety miles beyond Bikini, continuing on the last course it had received. Picked up by a mother plane, it joined its wingmates at Roi Airfield, where all Navy drones were landed for inspection and extraction of photographs and radioactive Hssion products. Army drones were returned to Eniwetok for similar procedures. The planes were intensely radioactive but their survival of the extreme heat and electromagnetic disturbances was almost phenomenal. Although the air drop from the bombing plane failed to explode with the famed pickle barrel accuracy, the Nevada, Arkansas and Pensacola suffered heavy damage to their superstructures but the armored gun turrets and hulls seemed to withstand the intense pressures exerted in the half-mile target circle. The carrier Independence suffered from fires which gained headway aboard ship, causing internal explosions. Slightly off center in the target array, but directly beneath the blast, the two thin-clad transports, Gilliam and Carlisle, and two Radio-controlled drone takes off for Bikini.

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l l l l l l ,i e 5 l l Xl l l H ff : i 's li i if iw ,. ,. EN 'E fd gf 1 . 4 iig- s xi 4 l if Refrigerator ship provisions Shangri-La at Roi. up by 4,500 white rats, ZOO goats, and ZOO pigs distributed from yardarm to bilges. Publicity attending the tests brought an unusual number of crank letters cone demning the use of animals, predicting unprecedented tidal waves, or such dire things as the creation of an orifice to pour the waters of the Paciic into the earth's ebullient center. ln spite of the many newspaper articles by 'lexpertsf' there was no danger that Operations Crossroads would produce such a fissure. Had the esoteric calculations of nuclear physicists been in error at Los Alamos-had the unprecedented heat and energy released in the fission of the first plutonium bomb initiated a self-sustaining chain reaction in common elements, then earth's 196 million square miles might have disintegrated into space. Fortunately for civilization it did not happen, and we now know that most common elements release insufficient neutrons to sustain or propagate the reaction. As Able Day approached, LST's transported the l65 Bikini natives to pre- viously prepared habitations on Rongerik Atoll, l3O miles' eastward. Scientists swarmed over the target ships, setting up sensitive instruments to measure various radiation and pressure waves. Cn the nearby atoll photographers installed the most elaborate and complex system ot automatic camera recording devices ever OS W

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Man made sun released in Able-Day Bikini Test - photographed by drone a fraction of a second after blast destroyers, Lamson and Anderson, sank immediately while the Japanese cruiser Sakawa received mortal wounds, sinking the following day. The Skate's conning tower was wrecked, rupturing the submarine's watertight integrity so she could not be safely submerged. No ship outside the three-quarter mile perimeter suf- fered appreciable damage but the Evaluation Board, under Dr. Karl Compton, surmised lethal effects on personnel from radiation on ships within the half- mile circle. Bikini Atoll suffered no damage from the bomb blast and recreation activities were resumed ashore during the evaluation period between Able and Baker Day. While scientists swarmed aboard ships with Geiger counters checking their instru- ments before the next big blast, the Navy rearranged the target array to provide the maximum laboratory specimens in the next test, The job required a con- siderable amount of seamanship, as many ships had been forced out of position by the tremendous pressure wave of the initial explosion. While preparations were under way for Baker Day, the Shangri-La received her fourth commanding oflicer. On July 5th, 1946, Captain W. P. Cogswell relieved Captain Cruise in traditional ceremonies on the carrier's flight deck. The new commanding officer, a graduate of the Naval Academy class of 1918,