Declassified U.S. Nuclear Test Film #02

0800002 - Project Crossroads - 1946 - 41:30 - Black & White - Project Crossroads was a series of two nuclear tests, Able and Baker, the first tests conducted at the Pacific Proving Ground, near the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. These were the fourth and fifth nuclear detonations in history, following the Trinity test in July 1945 and the two weapons dropped on Japan to end World War II.

The two bombs used in Crossroads were of the Fat Man configuration, very similar to the implosion-type weapons tested at Trinity and dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. It had a plutonium pit. The only other nuclear weapon available at the time was the uranium gun-type Little Boy, which was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. The Fat Man was a more complex weapon than Little Boy, thus needing more testing to gain experimental data.

On July 24, 1946, the Baker shot was set off in the Bikini lagoon at a depth of about 90 feet with a yield of 21 kilotons. Two million tons of water were contained in the eruption and two million yards of sediment were removed from the lagoon floor. Nine ships were sunk.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Nukes
• Nuclear
• weapons
• WMD
• radiation
• radioactive
• testing
• warhead
• downwinders
• atomic
• cancer

[mercatormac]

@ed11561 "Trillions of dollars"? What are you Doctor Evil now?

No ships were built to replace the ones expended in nuclear tests. At the end of World War Two there was a massive surplus of warship tonnage. Indeed some ships under construction were never completed.

[RalphReagan]

It was sad the some of the ships were sunk being historical esp. Saratoga

[wardenphil]

There is a reason, not revealed by the narrator, why everyone breathed such a sigh of relief when "Dave's Dream" took off successfully. The Mk III "Fat Man" Bomb was known from the beginning to be a very unsafe weapon (IFI/IFE was just then being invented) with a fair likelihood of undergoing a nuclear detonation in the event of a plane crash.

[gtc1961]

As sad as it was to dispose of all those great ships the reality is that they all can't be maintained forever, they'd have to be broken up eventually. This was a worthy cause for them, at least they died in support of the country and science. It is sad that they didn't save at least one sample from each class of warship though.

[amp3cx10000a7jp]

The foolish strategy and the experiment which were attached for the worst evil spirit on the history of man of a nuclear bomb.

[ed11561]

Nothing like destroying TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS of ships in a "TEST" so they could rebuild all of them for a fortune & charge the US Taxpayer.

And don't give me that shit about Obsolete.That's bullshit.

[spencnaz]

@3:19 = premature detonation.

[chinookking97]

@whillythewimp it wasn´t trinity,the first a-bomb, but the first h-bomb ( see my other comment)

[puncheex]

@whillythewimp: Actually, they did know, but there is never a condition of no doubt at all until the experiment is executed.

[1stPNPPRODUCTIONS]

@YimChun i don't think they did i now people that had to fly through the mushroom clouds