PROUD MOMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY: Caring for the Natives
Barry, Hamlet J. III
PROUD MOMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY Caring for the Natives by Hamlet J. Barry In early February, 1942, just two months after Pearl Harbor, American forces attacked the Japanese for the first...
...For the inhabitants of the Marshall Islands, however, it marked the beginning of 30 years of contact with the American military...
...miles to the north, to sell a boat and replenish supplies for his general store...
...Lekoj died on November 15, 1972...
...The ships of Joint Task Force Seven lay 30 miles to the east of the atoll...
...Bravo was considerably larger and more forceful than anticipated, and, more significantly, the wind began to carry the mushroom cloud to the east-toward the ships and Rongelap-rather than to the west as predicted...
...Based on later estimates, samples from the fallout at Rongerik, and recalculations from earlier data, the probable whole body gamma dose at Rongelap was 175 rads, plus or minus 25 rads...
...PROUD MOMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY Caring for the Natives by Hamlet J. Barry In early February, 1942, just two months after Pearl Harbor, American forces attacked the Japanese for the first time...
...Shipboard observers knew immediately that something was terribly wrong...
...Treatment and removal of the nodules has been generously paid for by the AEC, and the whole exposed populace now receives thyroxine to retard the development of nodules...
...Despite the fact that earlier surveys noted that some exposed children were slow to grow, no thyroid medication for the exposed populace was administered until after the discovery of the nodules...
...In two separate pulses, “Bravo” expended a third of its energy in x-ray and thermal radiation, and half its force went into a high pressure shock wave which sped outward from the Bikini site at more than 2,000 miles per hour...
...Unknown to Ukukot, the war was approaching, and the Japanese at Jaluit refused to let him return to Ebon, forcing him to work on the military installations at Jabor, Jaluit...
...In September 1972 19-year-old Lekoj Anjain was examined on Rongelap and found to have a low white blood cell count...
...The minimum lethal dose for man is probably about 225 rads...
...At 500 rads half the exposed populace will die...
...The harmless looking clouds which the wind pushed eastward contained water vapor and calcium oxide saturated with millions of rads (a “rad” is a measure per unit mass of radioactivity) of gamma and beta activity...
...To reach Rongerik, the ships of Task Force Seven had to sail past Rongelap...
...The children’s thyroid glands, which control growth, received from 700 to 1400 rads, while adult thyroids received 160 rads...
...In late 1941, 26-year-old Ukokot Libokmeto sailed from his home atoll of Ebon, to Jaluit atoll, about 75 Hamlet J. Barry, III, has recently returned from the Marshall Islands, where he worked as a lawyer for a legal services corporation...
...There was the further feeling, as hard to shake off, that we Americans were responsible for his death-that we had killed him with our bomb.His was the first death from a hydrogen bomb, and the bomb was ours...
...On Rongelap several effects were immediately evident...
...Since there was no RadSafe monitor on Rongelap in March 1954 we will never know exactly how much exposure to radioactivity the people there received...
...When it exploded it created a fireball three to five miles in diameter and produced a sun-like glow on the horizon at Rongelap...
...There is no question that Bravo is the cause of the thyroid nodules...
...Later, in a chapter in his book, Stay of Execution, Alsop wrote: “There was...
...Since 1964, similar problems have occurred among 19 inhabitants of Rongelap...
...During the tenth annual survey small thyroid nodules were discovered on three young girls...
...Shortly ’ after the blast those men received word by radio that the radioactive cloud was heading east, and that they should put on extra clothing and remain inside their prefabricated metal building...
...American pilots, unaided by intelligence reports and probably ignorant of the presence of Marshallese at Jabor, were apparently unable to distinguish military targets from other buildings...
...Several hours later a strange white ash began to fall on the atoll, and within several hours two inches of “snow” blanketed Rongelap...
...Prior to the detonation of Bravo, the military placed 28 RadSafe (Radiation Safety) monitors on uninhabited Rongerik atoll, about 30 miles east of Rongelap...
...the depressing feeling, hard to shake off, that I had been responsible for Lekoj’s death...
...Ukukot Libokmeto was killed by an American bomb dropped on the Marshallese housing area at the northern end of Jabor Island...
...The fighters attacked airfields at Milli, Kwajalein, Maloelap, and Wotje atolls, aRd the Japanese Navy and seaplane base at Jaluit atoll, and then retreated to the carriers...
...Soon the decision was made to evacuate the 28 Americans, and 34 hours after the blast, the RadSafe crew was aboard ship, heading away from the area...
...Lekoj was admitted to the National Cancer Institute where he shared a room with columnist Stewart Alsop, who was also undergoing treatment for leukemia...
...Some radio-nuclides were ingested or inhaled by the Rongelapese, particularly nuclides of iodine and strontium...
...One hundred miles to the west of Rongelap, Joint Task Force Seven detonated “Bravo,” American’s second hydrogen device and the most powerful bomb yet tested, later estimated to equal 15 million tons of TNT...
...So powerful had been the explosion and the “snow7’so filled with poison that the Rongelap people were not allowed to return home for three years, and even then the Rongelap environment was still radioactive and dangerous...
...Since then the Marshallese have often found themselves on the receiving end of military actions which were designed for the benefit of someone else, and which completely disregarded not only their legal rights, but their personal lives as well...
...military and the people of Rongelap for the next 20 years...
...Not only was Bravo a blast of monumental size, it was the first to utilize a fission-fusionfission process, creating an exceptionally “dirty” bomb...
...Many people lost all their hair and some skin, and everyone received beta burns to a greater or lesser degree...
...Three more Rongelapese were operated on in June 1974...
...The ships of Task Force Seven turned south to escape the radiation...
...In spite of the belated administration of thyroxine, nodules continue to occur...
...The results of this last ten per cent of Bravo’s energy would hound the U.S...
...Carrier planes struck Japanese bases in the Marshall Islands, 2,000 miles southwest of Hawaii...
...In the initial explosion “Bravo” riddled the surrounding area with a small percentage of its energy in the form of neutron and gamma rays...
...Ironically, Alsop had originally reported on the Bravo detonation of 1954...
...The Marshall Islands did not see American bombers again for 22 months, when, in preparation for an invasion, the bombing began on a daily basis...
...The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) has been following the exposed populace of Rongelap since 1954...
...Alsop wrote a graceful and poignant column for Newsweek (October 30, 1972) devoted to Lekoj...
...The remaining energy of “Bravo” was deposited as residual radiation in the uplifted water and coral...
...Before the detonation, Bikini atoll was evacuated...
...From an American point of view, the February 2 incident is of minor significance in the history of World War 11...
...Bravo” consisted of 200 pounds of uranium 235, 200 pounds of lithium deuteride, and more than a ton of uranium 238...
...All have been operated upon to remove the thyroid nodules, and in four cases the nodules were found to be malignant...
...Each year the AEC-through the Brookhaven National Laboratorysponsors a medical survey of the island...
...Sixty hours after the Bravo blast all the people were evacuated by air or ship to Kwajalein...
...The force of the explosion pulverized several hundred million tons of the Bikini reef and lagoon, lifting it in the form of water vapor and calcium oxide into a giant mushroom cloud that towered 21 miles into the sky within ten minutes of detonation...
...The morning of March 1, 1954, was different from all other mornings for the 82 residents of Rongelap atoll in the northern Marshalls...
...And finally, there was the feeling of the desperate, irrational unfairness of the death of this gentle, oddly innocent young man...
...At Rongelap the people saw the strange orange glow on the western horizon and heard the sound of Bravo, and wondered if another war had begun...
...The next day some RadSafe monitors visited Rongelap by plane and told the people not to drink the water...
...On the morning of February 2, 1942, Ukukot, his wife, and son awoke to the sound of attacking airplanes...
...He was taken to Honolulu, and then to Brookhaven, where the diagnosis was acute myelogenous leukemia...
...The populace at Rongelap was not evacuated, in spite of the fact that the atoll was closer to Bravo than Rongerik...
...Twenty-four hours later ships appeared in the lagoon, and the people were told that they must leave Rongelap or they would die...
Vol. 6 • January 1975 • No. 11
