Talk:Operation Crossroads/Archive 1

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Archive 1 Archive 2

Prinz Eugen

German cruiser Prinz Eugen also sank at this Operation. The movie Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb features footage from this atomic bombing test. --Abdull 00:07, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

It´s not correct that the Cruizer Prinz Eugen has sunk in this explosion. In fact it resisted to both explosions (ABLE and BAKER)She was awarded to the United States and commissioned into the US Navy as the unclassified miscellaneous vessel USS Prinz Eugen (IX-300). After examination and tests she was allocated to the target fleet for the Operation Crossroads atomic bomb tests. but was too radioactive to have leaks repaired. In September 1946 she was towed to Kwajalein Atoll and capsized on 22 December 1946 over Enubuj reef where she remains to this day. Arnaldo

Yield inconsistency

The text says: The series consisted of two detonations, each with a yield of 23 kilotons, but the image caption says: A 21 kiloton underwater nuclear weapons effects test? Thue | talk 10:23, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Animal testing

Alright, we need more than a sentence about the use of animal teting, exspecially their highly inhumane treatment, as they were locked intoplace on deck, sheard of woll, and made o suffer the radiation. I don't know about you, but that disturbs me, and I think it needs some mention. the video "Radio Bikini" gives an accurate portrayal of the testing (DISCLAIMER: the section after the explosion of ABLE where they recover the sheep is very graphic.).--Vox Rationis 02:46, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


The wikimapia link referenced shows the crater that resulted from the Castle Bravo detonation, not the Baker shot. I would remove it, but I'll leave it up to you guys.

Damage to ships-- sources

I received an inquiry concerning damage to ships during Baker. I was unable to answer the exact question, but found some sources which may be helpful here. For those interested in more specifics, go to my talk page at User_talk:Kablammo/Archive_3#Help_me_out_here. As I recall, the Richard Rhodes book also has some good information about the tests. Kablammo 00:33, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Politics of the tests

There ought to be something here about the politics of the test. They were done by the Army before civilian control of such weapons was enacted (with the AEC); they were done during a key moment in negotiations in the UN over postwar control of the bomb. The timing on them is rather odd then for a few reasons, and I have seen more than a few commentators mention this at times. If someone has the time and inclination, it would be great to have something written on this. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 15:24, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The timing of the tests is explained in the article, and in any number of articles in various journals published at the time: a) the Navy needed to know ASAP what effect the bombs would have on ships and personell, and b) they were rapidly losing a huge percentage of their trained personell to Demobilization, as it was called at the time. There is no doubt that there was a rush to accomplish these tasks, but the rush was far more to do with the availability of equipment and personell than it was to do with political wranglings here and there. It is certain that the politicians would like to have inflated their importance in the decision process (after all, they always want to take credit, due or not), but in reality, their posturings were a minor point at the time. Loren.wilton (talk) 04:31, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Article rewrite in progress

I am beefing this article up with new information and illustrations. The new version will be ready in a few days. In the meantime it is posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:HowardMorland/Sandbox as a work in progress. HowardMorland (talk) 17:03, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

There is more work to be done, but most of the information I wanted to add is in the Sandbox article now. The two maps of ship positions are key. To understand what happened to the ships, you need to know where they were in relation to the bombs. The paintings were in the version I was working on, and they are still there, as non-essential decoration. I will probably make the substitution on Monday. HowardMorland (talk) 21:15, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
I will make the substitution tomorrow.HowardMorland (talk) 21:36, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
The substitution is made. HowardMorland (talk) 18:20, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

"Prompt"

The article intro uses the word "prompt" to describe the fallout and juxtaposes it with "delayed". Since "prompt" has a technical meaning in dealing with radiation that I don't think is intended, I'm changing the word to "immediate". If this is inaccurate, please correct and discuss. chrylis (talk) 21:02, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Updated image

FYI I've uploaded an updated version of File:Crossroads Baker (wide-zoom).jpg (right) which is full frame, better quality, and higher resolution (5,160 × 2,696) - it might make a good lead image. Enjoy. :-) Dcoetzee 10:50, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

This is such a great photo. One point: Its caption calls it the most famous image of this series of blasts, which is debatable; to me the more familiar image is the aerial shot with the crack spreading underneath the ships. Not sure whether to rephrase the 'famous' claim. Tempshill (talk) 04:14, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Wilson cloud

The article refers repeatedly to a "Wilson cloud", but this term is never defined and the link is red. Prandtl–Glauert singularity seems to refer to the same phenomenon. Is there a way of finding out what a Wilson cloud is, and defining it for this article?   Will Beback  talk  01:36, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Pretty sure it's referring to Cloud chamber effect, where the cloud is formed not from air-pressure but from the radiation. — raeky (talk | edits) 01:57, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Could be, but we should pin it down one way or another.   Will Beback  talk  04:12, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
From the definition of Condensation Cloud, on p 631 of Glasstone and Dolan, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, 1977:
The expansion of air in the negative phase of the blast wave from the explosion results in a lowering of the temperature, so that condensation of water vapor present in the air occurs and a cloud forms. The cloud is soon dispelled when the pressure returns to normal and the air warms up again.
The name Wilson cloud is actually a misnomer in the sense that the vapor trails in a Wilson cloud chamber are caused by radioactive particles, not by a pressure wave, but the name was given by physicists who were familiar with the cloud chamber effect, which like the condensation cloud is a short-lived visible effect of a transitory phenomenon. Wilson cloud was used in contemporary descriptions of the Baker bomb, but Glasstone and Dolan use the more accurate term condensation cloud. In the text of the article, I used the language of the source I was citing. Condensation cloud could be substituted for Wilson cloud throughout the article. HowardMorland (talk) 17:05, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for finding that information. Would it be better to use a sentence or two to define the term here, or to add a definition of it to Cloud chamber? (I assume it's not used so frequently as to warrant an article of its own.) Since it is used in more than one article, perhaps the latter would be best.   Will Beback  talk  17:34, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
Another thought - One reason for using the term Wilson cloud is that it is unique to this situation, a nuclear explosion in humid air. Condensation cloud is less descriptive; every cloud is caused by condensation. Wilson cloud is the name observers gave to what they saw (mostly in pictures taken by robot cameras). HowardMorland (talk) 17:55, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
Good point. I see that both the Wilson cloud and Wilson's cloud chamber rely on expansion of air to provide the conditions for condensation. So that gives weight to adding a short section to the cloud chamber article describing this phenomenon. Then that could be linked from this article and any others that use the term.   Will Beback  talk  18:18, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
I've written a paragraph based on the Glasstone and Dolan source. Cloud chamber#Wilson cloud Please make any improvements possible. If it looks acceptable we can link to it from this article.   Will Beback  talk  18:45, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
I added a couple of sentences. HowardMorland (talk) 19:36, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
Great, thanks.   Will Beback  talk  20:30, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Peer Review

I think the quality of this article surpasses a b-class article and that it's well on the way to being a featured article. I nominated the article for peer review to get a better grasp on what needs done to ready it for the featured article review. — raeky (talk | edits) 00:53, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

For a military history article, you might want to try at WP:MHR instead of the standard peer review. Plus, if you thing it surpasses B, try for GA or even MILHIST A. -MBK004 18:52, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
I am addressing the issues raised by User:Finetooth in the peer review [1] (alt text for images, etc) in a working copy temporarily located at [2]. HowardMorland (talk) 16:33, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
The latest change adds alternate text to the images and addresses some other issues raised in the peer review. HowardMorland (talk) 16:35, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Good, this article could be FP quality I believe with a bit of work. — raeky (talk | edits) 17:00, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
The unsourced material at the beginning of Exposure to personnel dates back to the first draft in 2003, by User:The_Epopt. I have put a request on her talk page asking for footnotes. If none are forthcoming, sources could probably be found. HowardMorland (talk) 02:05, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
The whole section probably has the same source #74 (Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, Mortality of Veteran Participants in the CROSSROADS Nuclear Test, National Academy Press, Washington, 1966. Study pursuant to 1983 Public Law 98-160.) if I had to guess from the number of pages that source is citing 62 pages. — raeky (talk | edits) 02:48, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
Actually, it is taken verbatim from the source in footnote #6, http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq76-1.htm. I'll try condensing and rewriting it. HowardMorland (talk) 23:26, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
Did that. I have attempted to address all the issues raised in the peer review. I'm ready for someone to take another look. HowardMorland (talk) 04:40, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
The peer review by User:Finetooth seems to call for URLs to be visible in footnotes. However, in a sampling of Wikipedia:Featured articles I found all URLs to be hidden. What is the policy? There is a question about the use of %. Should all instances of % be replaced by percent? In the source documents, dimensions of objects are given in feet and distances in yards, rounded to the nearest 10 or 100. Metric conversions of feet makes sense, but the difference between yards and meters is less than the rounding error for the distances in question. Could an early footnote point out the yards and meters are essentially the same for this article? In the cases where the footnote rate is less than one per paragraph I could retrieve the relevant books from the library and cite page numbers. HowardMorland (talk) 03:30, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
The URLs in the footnotes are all now hidden. HowardMorland (talk) 14:45, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Battleship Texas picture source

From the User:Jacobst talk page in Wikimedia Commons:

Hi Jacobst, I have a quick question about File:USS Texas BB-35.jpg, which you uploaded back in 2006. I'm just curious whether you indeed took the photograph, or got it from, say, Flickr or a naval site. I ask because the image has since been transferred to the Commons and the script generated the boilerplate message that you were the uploader, which isn't necessarily analogous to "author", so I just wanted to double check so I can correct (i.e. specify) the verbiage accordingly. Эlcobbola talk 03:15, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your interest in my photograph of BB-35. Yes, I did take the photograph during a brief visit to the Houston/San Jacinto Park area in 2006. Jacobst (talk) 20:24, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Excellent. Thanks for getting back to me. Эlcobbola talk 21:25, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

target array images

There are two images that show the arrangement of ships relative to the bombs. They both have N arrows pointed upward, and a pointer to the island towards the upper right. However, examining the ships, with difficulty, suggests that either these directions are not accurate, or the ships were moved between tests.

Let's start with the Nevada, which is shown in red in the upper image, just above and to the right of the Independence. Note that the Nevada is pointed directly to the right, and the Independence right and slightly up. Now examine the lower image. For one, the Nevada is missing entirely. Was it removed between tests? For another, the Independence is now facing down and to the right, suggesting it has been moved? The Arkansas appears in both images in about the same orientation, but the Nagato appears to her upper right.

So if it is as I suspect, and the ships were moved, can someone add details?

Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:59, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

The ships were moved between tests. The second paragraph of the Radiation section says that the ships were remoored (i.e., moved) for the Baker test. HowardMorland (talk) 04:29, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Change of footnote format

If no one objects, I plan to substitute my sandbox version [3] into the main article tomorrow. In addition to the new Harvnb footnote format, it also has a new section called Background.HowardMorland (talk) 17:20, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I applaud your efforts to improve this article. I request you expand the sandbox version of the article to include two elements of information from the existing article. Meteorological criteria for test site selection have been lost in your proposed edit. Description of military and civilian scientist manpower problems should also be retained to explain the timing of the tests and the cancellation of test Charlie.Thewellman (talk) 18:06, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
Will do. However, my reading of the history is that there is less to those two issues than it might seem. To a large extent, the civilian scientists opposed the tests and boycotted them, forcing much of the rad safety monitoring and scientific data collection to be done by quickly-trained novices. The Charlie test was never scheduled for 1946; its date was Spring 1947. The main reason for its cancellation was the lack of uncontaminated target ships after Baker ruined the target fleet. As for weather, it was probably less important than the remote location. Bikini did not seem to meet all the weather criteria anyway. High level winds and low level winds usually move in opposite directions in that part of the world, which caused problems for the Castle Bravo test. By that time, it was too late to pick a different spot. HowardMorland (talk) 20:44, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps it would be appropriate to include differences in footnotes if you have conflicting references, but the date of those references might be significant. The navy manpower situation seems undisputed. I knew some of the civilian scientists involved and am aware of their postwar regrets, but popular support of those attitudes evolved and solidified as those scientists perceived freedom of expression despite national security restrictions. Existence of meteorological criteria is significant regardless of the extent to which the selected test site met those criteria. Knowledge of high altitude wind patterns may have improved after site selection. Have you evaluated the date of the referenced timing of test Charlie for the possibility of rescheduling in response to factors causing postponement?Thewellman (talk) 23:57, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
Made the substitution. Have not worked weather and school schedules in yet. HowardMorland (talk) 06:39, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Recovered omitted material from the previous version of this article.Thewellman (talk) 17:06, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Life Expectancy Reduced by 3 Months (of everyone present?)

I'm still not sure how mere observers several miles away from the blast were affected at all. Was it because they stayed long enough to be exposed to the fallout? Perhaps these details could be presented because at first glance that claim seems dubious and somewhat contrived. JohnnyTopQuark (talk) 18:46, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I suspect the followup activities of damage assessment were a more likely source of radiation injuries, and that might be stated more succinctly if documentation exists. It would be interesting to compare the population (if any) who simply observed test alpha to the population who observed both tests.Thewellman (talk) 19:24, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
As the text explains, the life expectancy change was an average for everyone (an excess of 200 deaths more than expected 46 years after the tests). Personnel who boarded contaminated target ships suffered a greater impact than those who did not. However, the precise reason for the all-cause mortality increase for all participants remains a mystery. It should be noted that the fallout contamination from Baker was so extensive that every participant probably got some exposure. HowardMorland (talk) 19:33, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
As far as I know, the number of people who left Bikini after Able was too small to be statistically significant. There were a few members of Congress, some journalists, and may be the B-29 flight crews. Everybody else had to stay for Baker, especially since the time between Able and Baker was shortened from six weeks to three weeks by Truman's postponement of Able. HowardMorland (talk) 19:41, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Should this picture be in the article?

Admiral Blandy and his wife slice into a cake labeled Operation Crossroads, and shaped like a mushroom cloud, while Admiral Frank J. Lowry looks on, November 7, 1946.
Admiral Blandy and his wife slice into an Operation Crossroads cake shaped like Baker's radioactive geyser, while Admiral Frank J. Lowry looks on, November 7, 1946.

It really seems to capture something about the essence of this event in history, the first of many public Cold War nuclear explosions. It is also the most embarrassing photograph ever taken of an active duty admiral in uniform (two of them, no less). It almost seems unfair to hold these people up to such ridicule, but they did actually do this: cut a wedding cake to celebrate what Glenn Seaborg called "the world's first nuclear disaster." HowardMorland (talk) 23:27, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand why it was such a disaster. Maybe you could explain. Because unexpected things happened? 67.167.149.153 (talk) 17:10, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The Navy did not expect the radioactive contamination from the Baker explosion to be so pervasive and so hard to remove. The Navy's public relations goal was to demonstrate the survivability of ships, by mooring most of them well beyond the expected danger range. Although a few scientists had predicted the fallout problem, the JTF-1 did not expect every target ship to be contaminated beyond rehabilitation (except for submerged submarines), with all but a few ships eventually scuttled in deep water, unable to be cleaned up enough to be recycled as scrap metal. The Bikini islanders did not expect never to be able to return home. HowardMorland (talk) 19:59, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Comments by Cryptic C62

Issues pertaining to older version of article.

Here are some comments on the article's prose:

  • "Ultimately, the biggest news from Crossroads, not widely reported at the time, was the radioactive contamination of all the target ships by the Baker shot." It isn't clear what the unencyclopedic phrase "biggest news" refers to. Big to whom? To the invited audience? To the scientists conducting the test? Also, suggest inserting "though" or some substitute before the "not widely reported at the time" to reinforce the contrast.
  • "It was the world's first experience with immediate, concentrated local radioactive fallout from a nuclear explosion." I'm not sure I support the humanization of the earth with the phrase "the world's first experience". Perhaps the sentence should be rewritten to incorporate the phrase "first instance" instead.
  • "(The global fallout from an air burst is delayed and widely dispersed.)" The notion of having a parenthetical phrase in the lede seems silly to me. I suggest either incorporating it into the previous sentence or moving it into a footnote.
  • "To prepare the atoll for Crossroads, Bikini's native residents were evicted from their homes and resettled on other, less satisfactory islands." The phrase "less satisfactory" introduces a negative POV without actually providing any information as to why the other islands were unsatisfactory. Rather than elaborate upon this, I suggest simply removing the phrase.
  • "Because of radioactive contamination, Bikini remains uninhabited as of 2009, occasionally visited by sport divers." The last clause is not grammatically correct. I suggest adding "though it is" to the beginning.
  • "but their life expectancy seems to have been reduced by about three months" The phrase "seems to have been" makes this seem very speculative. I suggest either replacing it with hard data, an approximation thereof, or a broader statement.
  • "When World War II ended, no one had conducted controlled tests of the toxicity and residual effects of atomic detonations, nor had they tested the bomb on naval or military equipment." The phrase "no one" isn't particularly helpful here. I suggest either replacing it with something more specific (such as "neither side") or reworking the sentence to avoid personalizing it altogether: "When World War II ended, there had not been any controlled tests..." Also, the reader may not be familiar with the timeline of World War II, so I suggest either replacing "When World War II ended" with something more specific or adding to it.
  • "As the United States demobilized its wartime military infrastructure" Military infrastructure refers to permanent installations and structures. How exactly does one "demobilize" a permanent structure? Suggest rewording.
  • "Some believed the atomic bomb made navies obsolete." Who believed this? The quote that follows this sentence seems to hint that McMahon thought this, but the quote and the proposed test are about the destructive power of atomic bombs, not specifically the obsoleteness of navies. Also, what was the opposing argument in the debate and who made it?
  • "A series of three tests was recommended" By whom?
  • "Joint Task Force One (JTF-1) was created, with a ten-month tenure, to conduct the tests at Bikini Atoll." How was Bikini Atoll chosen?
  • "but to measure damage as a function of distance at as many different distances as possible" What does "distance" refer to here? The distance between ships or the distance from the blast center?
  • "Military equipment was arrayed on some of the ships" I don't know what this means.
  • "Technical experiments were also conducted to study nuclear weapon explosion phenomena." What does this refer to? This seems like an incredibly broad subtopic to be summed up in one sentence, especially a sentence in the Ships section.
  • "Navy personnel were allowed to extend their obligated service for one year if they wanted to participate in the tests and see an atomic bomb explode." As this is currently written, it isn't clear if the extension of obligated service was a requirement for participation or a reward thereof.
  • "Many of the civilian scientists also volunteered for project participation to see an atomic bomb explode." I think it needs to be made clearer here that the excitement of seeing a live atomic bomb explosion was the motivation to join the project. Suggested rewrite: "Many of the civilian scientists who volunteered to participate claimed they did so simply so they could see an atomic bomb explosion" or some such.

More to come. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 00:45, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

8th bullet - Military infrastructure includes various buildings and land temporarily converted to military bases. Bases are typically demobilized by returning them to civilian purposes.
9th bullet - (Obsolete Navy) Military expenditures have always been a contentious issue in American politics. There are initial limitations on the amount of money to be expended, and then disagreements about how those amounts should be allocated. The United States Army Air Corps was jealous of the large allocations the Navy received for shipbuilding while Dreadnoughts remained the measure of a nation's military might through the early 20th century. Army Air Corps efforts to discredit battleships were highlighted by Billy Mitchell in the 1920s and validated by vulnerability to aircraft during the Battle of Taranto, destruction of the German battleship Bismarck, attack on Pearl Harbor, and sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse in 1940 and 1941. With impending recognition of the United States Air Force as a separate service to oversee the Strategic Air Command mission, military and industrial air power advocates viewed historical allocations for construction and operation of ships as a precedent reasonably reallocated to fund operation and maintenance of an expensive fleet of bombers to deliver nuclear weapons. Sea power advocates argued aircraft and aircraft carriers of the Fast Carrier Task Force had unique tactical advantages with demonstrated ability to withstand aerial attacks and were more effective than land-based heavy bombers for amphibious warfare and in defense of ocean commerce. Thewellman (talk) 05:22, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback, though my comments were meant to help the authors improve the article; if you're knowledgeable about these things, perhaps you could try to incorporate your responses into the article. I won't be continuing my review due to the stagnation of the FAC and the complete lack of feedback from the authors. If anyone is interested in starting it up again, feel free to leave a note on my talk page. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 23:44, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
I plan to address most of your objections by rewriting the Preparation section. Regarding the lack of feedback, I have been working on the article since the peer review by User:Finetooth on August 6, trying to get it into shape for further evaluation. Many changes have been made, but your list of items in the first few paragraphs was overwhelming. There seems to be no end to things reviewers want fixed. Some are downright silly, like questioning the copyright status of the wonderful picture [4] which the uploader User:Jacobst claims that he took and put in the public domain. In the meantime, almost a thousand people look at the article every day. I am not sure that many of the changes required for Featured Article status actually improve the experience of the average reader. HowardMorland (talk) 18:54, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
The work in progress is fairly presentable now at my sandbox [5]. Notice that in the sandbox I have changed all the footnotes to the linked Harvnb style. HowardMorland (talk) 14:14, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Resolved issues
  • " They were the first nuclear tests held in the Marshall Islands" Why is this significant? Perhaps "They were the first of many nuclear tests held in the Marshall Islands"
Yes, the first of many. HowardMorland (talk) 15:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  • "A third burst, Charlie, planned for 1947, was canceled." Is there a way to briefly summarize why this was canceled? Perhaps something like "A third burst, Charlie, planned for 1947, was canceled due to a lack of funding" or some such. This would help make the sentence less terse and help prevent readers from having to dig through the article for this very relevant fact.
    It was the inability to decontaminate the target ships, not a lack of funding. However, the story is complicated. The Army wanted to cancel Charlie, and the Navy did not. General Groves and Admiral Blandy got into a personal spat about it. There were only seven bombs in the U.S. arsenal, with new ones being made at a rate of only four per year; the Army wanted to build up the arsenal for use by its bombers. It also wanted to deny the Navy one more chance to demonstrate the survival of most of its target fleet. In the end, the Navy was forced to yield because it was overwhelmed by the contamination problem. Since the Navy was trying to keep the contamination problem out of the news, Blandy said that Baker had provided all the information they needed about underwater detonations. HowardMorland (talk) 15:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    It doesn't seem like there would be any way to concisely explain all of those reasons in one sentence, so why not just pick out the most important one? "A third burst, Charlie, planned for 1947, was canceled primarily because the Navy was unable to decontaminate the target ships" or some such. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 18:16, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    That would work. HowardMorland (talk) 18:31, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  • "uninhabited islands where they were unable to feed themselves" Why? I suppose the reader could go through the trouble of clicking on the footnote and reading through the awkwardly named Bikini after Crossroads section (which discusses events that happened before Crossroads...? We'll discuss that later), but it would be easier to just state it concisely here. How about "uninhabited islands where they were unable to fish and suffered from malnourishment" or "uninhabited islands where they were unable to sustain themselves due to [some thing which you probably know more about than I do]".
The best explanation is that this part of the Pacific Ocean was first explored and settled three or four thousand years ago. The unoccupied islands are islands where people tried to live and were not able to make a go of it. Not enough land and not enough fish. By the 20th century, any attempt to settle an unoccupied island with a subsistence agriculture and fishing culture was doomed. All the suitable islands were taken. I'm not sure how to condense this information into a single sentence for the introduction. HowardMorland (talk) 16:52, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
I think the golden ticket here is to change "uninhabited" to "uninhabitable". I mean, we can't know for sure that there were absolutely zero people on the island beforehand, right? "Uninhabitable" adequately summarizes the conditions of the island. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 18:14, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
Actually, the island they live on now is not uninhabitable. It is, like England, dependent on the importation of food (but unlike England, Kili has no harbor, and food shipments are weather dependent). This is explained in the text of the article. The question here is how much explaining does one do in the introduction. You have to draw a line somewhere. I actually thought the original statement that their new island was "less satisfactory" than Bikini was a good summary. HowardMorland (talk) 21:42, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps you're right. I still find the wording a tad unencyclopedic. How about simply changing "feed" to "sustain"? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 18:16, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Here are some comments I have on the article's prose:

  • "The most important result from Crossroads, though not widely reported at the time, was the radioactive contamination of all the target ships by the underwater Baker shot [...] Chemist Glenn Seaborg, the longest-serving chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, called Baker "the world's first nuclear disaster."" These two sentences seem fishy to me. A nuclear explosion occurs underwater, causing massive amounts of radioactivity to the extent that a noted chemist referred to it as a "disaster", yes? Yet the most important result was the contamination of ships...? How is that a disaster? I would surmise that the missing piece of this equation would be the presumably devastating affect the explosion had on the surrounding environment. That would certainly qualify for a disaster.
The Seaborg quote seems like a good summary of what happened, in part because of who Seaborg was. I agree that the contamination of surplus ships that ultimately had to be scuttled in deep water rather than being scrapped seems like a rather minor nuclear disaster, especially coming after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but Baker was the first case of local radioactive fallout which is what he was referring to. Most of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims were killed by blast and fire, but the ones who died of acute radiation sickness would probably rate their experience as part of a nuclear disaster. The worst nuclear disasters involving radioactive contamination came later: Mayak, Chernobyl, and the local and global fallout from continued nuclear testing. At Bikini, the persistent contamination from Baker prevented reoccupation of the atoll and made it available for further testing which eventually ruined it permanently. HowardMorland (talk) 17:18, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
The fact remains that the lead describes the event as a "disaster" without explaining why. I suggest expanding the relevant paragraph to remedy this. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 18:16, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  • "The first proposal to test nuclear weapons against naval warships was made on August 16, 1945, by Lewis Strauss, future chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission" I think his office at the time of the proposal is more relevant than his eventual chairmanship of the AEC. Who was he?
  • The first paragraph of Background has several unreferenced sentences.
I am no longer reviewing this article. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 04:44, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Arkansas upending?

I altered the caption of a photograph of the water column stating the USS Arkansas was upended, on the basis of the NPS paper which specifically denies that account. I now see that footnote 27 contains a discussion of the issue, and states that one of the authors of the NPS report now agrees that the vessel was upended. The last half of that footnote, while certainly plausible, is subject to question as original research unless its statements and conclusions are supported by reliable third-party sources. If those statements are based on examination of the footage they would constitute original research; if they are based upon expert conclusions of others, the sources should be given. Kablammo (talk) 01:19, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

All the evidence I know of is in footnote 27 (now footnote 30). The key is the video which is linked to the footnote. On March 11, 2009, I received the following email from the primary author of the NPS paper which, as you say, "specifically denies" the upending. "Dear Mr. Morland: I liked the wikipedia rewrite, and I have looked carefully at the footage, and I agree with your conclusion on Arkansas. Thank you sharing this, and for the work you have done on the wikipedia site. Jim Delgado."
There were no eyewitnesses. The only evidence of what happened is photographic, both still and video, plus the observed condition of the hull on the bottom of the lagoon. According to my research at the Library of Congress, Jim Delgado is the only person who has published anything on this topic since the 1940s. [Correction: Jonathan Weisgall is another. HM-Dec 2009], His revised opinion is based on evidence he did not have at the time he wrote his book. Other sources are unlikely to exist.
HowardMorland (talk) 16:08, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
Since the text containing the description of the upended Arkansas has remained in the article, it seems reasonable to restore the caption of the photo that shows it happening. HowardMorland (talk) 16:33, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

No original research is allowed on Wikipedia, and all content must be verifiable. This is visible right below the text area when you're editing an article. As such, a personal email to someone is of no value, and only published sources can be used. Therefore I've corrected the article, and removed the original research discussion from the footnotes. Dan100 (Talk) 12:39, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

We seem to agree that James Delgado's statements in his 1991 and 1996 books, that the battleship Arkansas was not lifted out of the water, and that the black object in the water column is merely a shadow, qualify as a verifiable source, something we can cite in a Wikipedia article. It is noteworthy, however, that he has changed his opinion in light of new evidence, namely video images (only recently declassified) of the battleship standing keel-vertical, like the Washington Monument, free and clear of the water column before falling back into it. Like a true scientist, he bases his opinions on the latest reliable evidence. Unfortunately, he has not stated his new opinion in a published article, only in an email message. If he does write another article, and states his revised opinion, that new statement will be a verifiable source, which will be in conflict with much of the other published material on the subject.
There is the contemporary drawing by Marine Corps artist Grant Powers, which is in this article. Also, all of the sources cited in the footnote say that many Crossroads participants believed the battleship was lifted vertical. What is the Wikipedia policy when verifiable sources are contradictory?
Meanwhile, it is too bad that a self-evident picture cannot be considered a verifiable source. It was good enough to convince Delgado to change his mind. HowardMorland (talk) 22:27, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
If the picture was self evident, there would be no debate in the first place. But the photograph isn't self evident and the belief that the Arkansas can be seen standing on end seems to rest mainly on the belief by Crossroads participants that they could see the Arkansas standing on end. 24.16.181.1 (talk) 07:56, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Actually, the reason for the debate is that Admiral Blandy declared that black object in the famous still picture was a column of soot from the stacks of the Arkansas. Most participants did not believe him, and even the Joint Chiefs evaluation committee said that more pictures were needed to determine what it was. The extra pictures did not become available to the public until very recently. HowardMorland (talk) 17:11, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
With the encouragement of Jonathan Weisgall and James Delgado, the definitive living authors on this subject, I have revisited the issue of the Arkansas, relying entirely on verifiable published sources.HowardMorland (talk) 16:39, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Reverted good-faith edit

I reverted the following October 31 edit: "radiological and chemical toxin; Having equal or less chemical toxicity than arsenic, cyanide or caffeine and is similar to a household smoke detector in radiotoxicity," along with its accompanying footnote: "http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf15.html on toxicity: Despite being toxic both chemically and because of its ionising radiation, plutonium is far from being "the most toxic substance on Earth" or so hazardous that "a speck can kill". On both counts there are substances in daily use that, per unit of mass, have equal or greater chemical toxicity (arsenic, cyanide, caffeine) and radiotoxicity (smoke detectors)."

It seems to be a refutation of something the article does not say. "On a par with" and "equal or less" mean about the same thing. Comparing plutonium to caffeine is silly. Plutonium is similar to the americium in smoke detectors, but the small amount of sealed americium in a smoke detector is not environmentally comparable to plutonium dust on the decks of the Baker ships. Theoretically, smoke detector americium is not supposed to get inside the body. HowardMorland (talk) 18:10, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Preparation

Just a note that if the article is developed further, then I think the bulleted list at the top of "Preparation" invites extra comment - why the requirements, which alternatives were considered, and so on - something which I think could make a really interesting couple of developed paragraphs that would be useful to the reader. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 12:48, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Correction of photo title

The caption of the picture labeled Operation Crossroads Baker Battleship Arizona.jpg needs correction. The ship in question is the USS Arkansas, not the Arizona. Keep in mind that that vessel was destroyed at Pearl Harbor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.167.208.88 (talk) 03:58, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

checkY Moved file on Commons. Updated English and Russian Wikipedias. 08:59, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Bigini ads are without reference

"The name "Bikini" was adopted for bikini swimwear during Operation Crossroads; a coincidence of explosive shock perhaps ("like the bomb, the bikini is small and devastating"), and the realization that "atom bombs reduce everybody to primitive costume."[132]" in ref 132 there is only "Bikini--smaller than the smallest bathing suit in the world." Bulwersator (talk) 06:46, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Another footnote has been added: Judson Rosebush, "1945-1950: The Very First Bikini". Bikini Science. Retrieved 2012-11-25.
HowardMorland (talk) 19:34, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

GA Review

GA toolbox
Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:Operation Crossroads/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Tomobe03 (talk · contribs) 16:07, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Rate Attribute Review Comment
1. Well-written:
1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct. Everything appears fine
1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation. MOS compliance checks out
2. Verifiable with no original research:
2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline. References provided
2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose). Criteria met
2c. it contains no original research. No OR
3. Broad in its coverage:
3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic. I can see no gaps needing filling-in at this level
3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). Focus/breadth balance fine
4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each. No bias
5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute. Article history indicates no edit wars
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content. all clear
6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions. criteria met
7. Overall assessment. Passing

References/link issues:

  • There are four dead refs, all pointing to www.dtra.mil - can those be repaired?
  • There is a ref to Manhattan Project – Operation Crossroads (DOE History), apparently redirected to a different web page. That one should be changed to an appropriate page.
    • Removed the ref.
  • Ref link to United States Navy CMWDS (info) [navy.mil] appears to be broken.--Tomobe03 (talk) 16:53, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Bradley, No Place to hide could have OCLC parameter (622505066), ditto for The Swords of Armageddon U.S. nuclear weapons development since 1945 (34985730), Operation Crossroads: The Official Pictorial Record (1223420), and Bombs at Bikini: The Official Report of Operation Crossroads (1492066).--Tomobe03 (talk) 17:24, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Does the Coster-Mullen, Atom Bombs: The Top Secret Inside Story of Little Boy and Fat Man (Spiral-bound) fall within WP:SPS provisions for acceptance of self-published work? Which publication established the author as a reliable source?--Tomobe03 (talk) 17:28, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
    • The New Yorker for one. His work has revolutionised our understanding of nuclear weapons design, especially of the Little Boy bomb. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:47, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
  • The Life magazine source should have the ISSN parameter added.--Tomobe03 (talk) 17:34, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
  • The ref pointing to the The Niedenthal, Jack (2008), A Short History of the People of Bikini Atoll actually takes readers to a website that does not appear to be a WP:RS. Furthermore, the citation claims year 2008 (presumably) as publication year, while the website specifies 2001. Google books appear to support year 2001 as well ([6]). Assuming that the claim is supported by the book, wouldn't it be possible to change this ref to point to the book instead?--Tomobe03 (talk) 17:40, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
    • It's just moved. Changed to the new location. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:47, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
  • The Mortality of Veteran Participants in the CROSSROADS Nuclear Test: Study pursuant to 1983 Public Law 98–160 ref needs additional parameters (ISBN) available here.--Tomobe03 (talk) 17:44, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

MOS issues:

  • Per MOS:NBSP, a non-breaking space should be used between numbers and associated units of measurement, such as in The 10.6 pounds (4.8 kg) of plutonium.... Alternatively, a {{convert}} template may be used.--Tomobe03 (talk) 17:06, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
  • A non-breaking space is also needed between time value and "a.m." or "p.m."--Tomobe03 (talk) 10:46, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Why are "Able", "Baker", "Charlie" and "Crossroads" (in Crossroads follow-up) italicized? I found no relevant support for the text formatting in MOS:ITALIC.--Tomobe03 (talk) 17:15, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
    • Able and Baker fall under "named exhibitions" I think. For consistency, I have de-Italicised "Operation Crossroads". Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:43, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
      • The "named exhibitions" are listed as an item under "Works of art and artifice", therefore that seems quite unlikely. Also "Operation Crossroads" is still sometimes italicized and in other instances not.--Tomobe03 (talk) 10:12, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Rank should be omitted before surnames of people already mentioned (the 1st instance should contain full rank and name) per WP:SURNAME. One such instance is Vice Admiral Blandy, referred to as either "Blandy" or "Admiral Blandy" after the 1st instance of the name.
  • In the "Nicknames" subsection, words Able, Baker, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, How and Mike should be italicized (instead of placed in quotation marks) per WP:WORDSASWORDS. The same applies to the terms describing words as words in the "Sequence of blast events" and "Arkansas" subsections.--Tomobe03 (talk) 10:44, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

No DAB links found. I'll post further comments here shortly, once I thoroughly read the article.--Tomobe03 (talk) 19:22, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

  • In On September 19, the Chief of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), General of the Army Henry H. Arnold, asked the Navy to save ten of the thirty-eight captured Japanese ships for use in the test proposed by McMahon., it is unclear what was the Navy asked to save the ships from? Would it be better to say something like "spare" or "set aside" instead?
  • In President Harry S. Truman appointed Blandy as head of Army/Navy Joint Task Force One (JTF-1), newly created to conduct the tests which he named Operation Crossroads., it is unclear (at least to me) who named the tests - Truman or Blandy?
  • In Colonel Paul W. Tibbets believed that it was a miscalculation by the crew., there appears to be something missing. I suppose the "it" refers to cause of the miss, so perhaps it would be more clear to say something like "Colonel Paul W. Tibbets believed that the miss was caused by a miscalculation of the crew.
  • In The Baker shot produced so many unusual phenomena that two months later a conference was held to standardize nomenclature and define new terms for use in descriptions and analysis., time clause should be moved to the end of the sentence or separated by commas.
  • In The underwater fireball took the form of a rapidly expanding hot "gas bubble" ..., if the fireball (I'm not quite sure personally) was a gas bubble, it should not be in quotation marks, and if it was not gas, then I suppose the word "gas" should be omitted as well.
    • It was a gas bubble. Removed quotes. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:41, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Shouldn't the "Operation Crossroads" and the "Manhattan Project" always be preceded by a definite article?--Tomobe03 (talk) 10:58, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
  • The subsection title "Actual film badge readings" appears redundant. In my view it would be better suited as a title of the table following the subsection title.--Tomobe03 (talk) 11:28, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Wouldn't it be better to replace For the main expected causes of this increased mortality, leukemia and other cancers, the incidence was not significantly higher than normal. with "Incidence of the main expected causes of this increased mortality, leukemia and other cancers was not significantly higher than normal."?

Overall, I like the article - obviously a lot of work went into its writing. If you don't mind, I'd like to ask another editor to have a look at the prose, just to check if I missed anything of substance in that area.--Tomobe03 (talk) 11:35, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

  • Just checking prose as requested, but before I do, there is quite a bit of overlinking needing attention: "German cruiser Prinz Eugen", "shock wave", "mushroom cloud", "stratosphere" , "USS Arkansas (BB-33)", "stern", "museum ship", "USS Saratoga (CV-3)", "Manhattan Project", "Harry K. Daglian", "Louis Slotin", "fission products", "chlorine-35", "USS Haven", "USS New York", "plutonium", "roentgens", "Rongerik Atoll", "Kwajalein Atoll", "fallout", "bikini".
    • Removed all the duplicates. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:15, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
  • "to setten of the", not sure what that means. "to settle on"?
    • Should be "set aside". Some sort of hiccup there. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:15, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
  • "worse, mostly due to"?
  • the Trinity burst was at 100 feet and had local fallout, but to be a real airburst without local fallout it needed to be at 100 feet?
  • there is a cite error, "Cite error: <ref> tag with name "FOOTNOTEShurcliff1947109.2C_155" defined in <references> is not used in prior text"
    • That one was weird. Fixed. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:15, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Otherwise, all good. Prose review completed. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 12:07, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

  • All points addressed. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:18, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
    • Great work. Just removed some redundant nbsps - they are needed in between numbers and units of measure to prevent say "kg" or "a.m." breaking into a new line while leaving the figure behind. It's ok to have a line break in between "60 goats". Happy to pass this GAN!--Tomobe03 (talk) 21:28, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
Another footnote may have been added, but the text in the article is still not in agreement with the commonly accepted etymology (which is actually noted in the additional footnote).

70.171.44.124 (talk) 08:32, 29 August 2013 (UTC)BGriffin

Nomenclature

This may be trivial, and may have been resolved elsewhere, but I thought fission reactions were considered to be "atomic," and fusion bombs "nuclear," in weapons-speak.Learner001 (talk) 22:38, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

It's not trivia. The two terms are equivalent. Here's an article on the subject. Hawkeye7 (talk) 07:42, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

External Links

The links to short films are broken. The discussion of template revision is irrelevant to this article and should be removed before Dec 4. I tried removing the word "short" from the template. That works ok, except for the links that are broken anyway. HowardMorland (talk) 03:12, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

I fixed it. The links were broken on May 14, when three IDs were renamed. I restored the correct ID names and changed the template from "Internet Archive short film" to "Internet Archive film." I assume the intention was to change the way the date was formatted in the name, which can still be done, as long as the ID is not changed. HowardMorland (talk) 03:55, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Rads/Rems

In one paragraph about Baker, the measurement of rems (a converted to Sieverts) is used to discuss gross radioactivity on the water (it's even mentioned in a comment in the table, which I'm responsible for). Rems and sieverts (equivalent dose) should not be used in reference to gross radiation; rads and Grays (absorbed dose) are the appropriate units. Rems and Sieverts take account of the parts of teh body dosed, and the types of radiation. In the same way, BTW, a radiation meter which measure is sieverts is a similar crock; lots of unmentioned assumptions occur when that is done. The paragraph needs to be worked to get that right; it's measuring sand by the radian. SkoreKeep (talk) 22:50, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Table in the lede

Skorekeep, why did you add the table to the lede section? It's highly irregular to have a table like that there, it should be in its own section or an appendix; this kind of thing is not really appropriate for the lede. I'm also not sure if some of the infobox changes you made make sense. Would you mind if I either reverted or moved your table somewhere else? SnowFire (talk) 18:26, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

No, move it as you will, though I'd rather that you not just revert it out. Please do use the talk sections to explain why you edit as you do; I'm not beyond learning new things. I'm an engineer, and stone deaf to a lot of the encyclopedic nuances present in wikipedia, so I depend on the "'pedia Nazis" to straighten me out on matters like this. The reason for the table is that I have placed the same table in every other US test series page (as well as those for the other 6 nuclear countries), as a uniform way to display a lot of the facts that would be wretched if presented in a prose manner. Go ahead and edit; if I disapprove, I'll ping you on it and we'll come to an understanding, I would hope. Please move the last two sentences before the table along with it, if you do.
What changes to the infobox seem inappropriate to you? If anything, I've supplied more detailed information than was there before, hopefully without violating its reasons for existence. The main problem with this specific infobox is that it is single-event oriented (to tests, not to series of tests), so some of the header wording is inappropriate. I got some of that changed, but not all of it. Test type and test site, for example, must allow for multiple answers when heading up a test series. At any rate, tell me how it can be more useful; take a look at some of the other series pages where the table format is used (like Operation Castle or Operation Hardtack II). Go to Worldwide nuclear testing counts and summary and navigate to the countries and their series. By all means let me know what you think about the whole idea. SkoreKeep (talk) 19:29, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
You haven't encountered the Nazis yet. This is a Featured Article. It has gone through a series of comprehensive reviews. Material not up to that standard can be removed. In particular, don't change the date format, don't change the article's reference format, and don't add poorly sourced material (such as citing an entire book). I have moved the table, and corrected some of the references. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:56, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
OK, thanks, and I meant no disrespect to nazis. I notice you dropped all the notes concerning the table values explanations, as well as the Notes column. The latter is no doubt redundant with the article around it, so that's fine. I don't much like the appearance of the volume of notes that I've generated for the tables, but don't feel in general I can just let the column headers bear the full weight without any explanations. What I would like to do is have a separate article with those notes expanded, but that sounds like too much of a muchness. Any comments or suggestions about that, while we're here? SkoreKeep (talk) 22:23, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
Oh, and I have never seen a Mark 3 bomb referred to as "Mark III". AFAIK, the AEC/military never use(d) Roman numerals on Mark, bomb, warhead or experimental device names. Have I missed something?
Reading your own references. Roman numerals were used in the 1940s. They switched to Arabic numbers in 1950. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:34, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Classic quote for legacy section

"As soon as the war ended, we located the one spot on earth that hadn't been touched by the war and blew it to hell." --Comedian Bob Hope commenting on Operation Crossroads

--John (talk) 13:36, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

(Grin) He was wrong (the five Japanese on Bikini Atoll committed suicide after the bloody Kwajalein Island battle; there was a five-day invasion against 2000+ Japanese on Enewetak Atoll where they had an airstrip), but it's too good a line to kill. SkoreKeep (talk) 21:36, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Wigwam and Crossroads/Charlie

The paragraph in question reads:

"Testing program staff originally set test Charlie for early 1947. They wanted to explode it deep under the surface in the lee of the atoll to test the effect of nuclear weapons as depth charges on unmoored ships.[1] The unanticipated decontamination delay following test Baker[2] delayed the availability of technical support personnel and left no uncontaminated target ships available for use in Charlie. The naval weapons program staff decided the test was less pressing given that the entire U.S. arsenal had only a handful of nuclear weapons and the test was cancelled. The official reason given for cancelling Charlie was that the program staff felt it was unnecessary due to the success of the Able and Baker tests.[3] The weapon intended for Charlie was instead used in 1955 as part of Operation Wigwam.[4]"

(as amended 15 June 2014).

The paragraph says, in essence, that Charlie was canceled because of lack of pressing need and unexpected difficulties with radiation in Able and Baker. Then it says the intended Charlie weapon was used in Wigwam, 9 years later. This latter statement is false; the bombs used in the two were completely different. The bomb use in Wigwam was a purpose built marine use prototype called the Mark 90 "Betty" depth bomb, yield 30 kT, while Charlie was a 21 kT Mark III, which became obsolete in 1949. I believe that the statement is a garbled translation of the fact that Wigwam was intended to fulfill the function of Charlie as a deep ocean effects test. The reference following the sentence does not address the hardware used at all. Rewriting. SkoreKeep (talk) 21:42, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes that is correct. Thanks for that. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:03, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Activation products

Not strictly true that "only sodium becomes radioactive". Chlorine gives chlorine-36, and oxygen-17 gives carbon-14 and an alpha particle on neutron absorption. --JWB (talk) 01:46, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

You're right. How to fix the statement? I see that chlorine-36 has a 300,000 year half life, which would make its intensity low enough to be ignored by the Geiger men at Bikini. Oxygen-17 is a small fraction (0.04%) of natural oxygen, and the resulting carbon-14 also has a long half-life, 5,700 years. Also, carbon is not a component of sea water, and I assume it would have eventually settled out, like the fission products and plutonium. Radioactive sodium is the only radioactive seawater component mentioned in the Crossroads accounts. Its what caused problems with the ships' hulls and piping systems.
How about "only sodium becomes intensely radioactive", with a footnote mentioning chlorine-36 and carbon-14? HowardMorland (talk) 04:59, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
That sounds good. I've edited (please revise as you see fit) and added a small table of neutron cross-sections and seawater abundances. From the latter, it looks like neutron absorption in seawater would be 97% on hydrogen, 3% on chlorine, and less than 0.1% each on sodium and oxygen.
An isolated and probably ionized carbon atom would likely react with seawater producing a carbon compound. CO2 in the oceans has a long lifetime and some other compounds would also or would be oxidized to CO2. --JWB (talk) 17:13, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
No, I forgot to divide by the atomic weight of water - it should be 35% chlorine, 0.45% sodium, 0.02% oxygen.
I'm afraid I don't think the table actually works for this article. Its purpose would be to explain why sodium was the only isotope of concern for the radiation safety people. But most readers are going to be mystified by the table, and wonder why sodium was more of a problem than hydrogen. What really matters is the long half-life and correspondingly low intensity of the other isotopes, which readers don't need to know much about for this story. I don't think much technical detail is needed, other than to say that sodium is the problem. If you don't mind, I will summarize the explanation in a footnote. HowardMorland (talk) 16:13, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
That's fine, I was not pushing for the table to stay in the article, though it would be good to save it somewhere, like this talk page. However I think "If all the neutrons ... were captured by sodium-23, 0.4 pounds of sodium-24 would result, but sodium did not capture all the neutrons." is a little misleading if only 1/200 of the neutrons were captured by sodium and should be rephrased to say the percentage was quite low. It could be more or less than 0.5% depending on epithermal cross sections and if epithermal absorption was significant, which I don't know so far. --JWB (talk) 20:08, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
Resonance integrals are on the same order as the thermal cross sections, so shouldn't affect those statistics much. However I also found that Cl-35 more than 1% of the time will undergo a (n,p) reaction giving S-35 with a halflife of 87.7 days. The yield of S-35 should be almost as great as that of Na-24, but decay energy is less than 5% as great and decay rate is 140 times less. However after a week of decay, decay energy from Na-24 should drop below that from S-35. --JWB (talk) 22:48, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
Here's the table.HowardMorland (talk) 21:58, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Thermal neutron absorption of elements[5] in seawater
Element Cross-section Mole/kg
Hydrogen 0.3326 barns 106
Oxygen 0.00019 barns 53.5
Chlorine 35.5 barns .54
Sodium 0.53 barns .465
The section on activation products needs major work. There are so many problems, it is difficult to decide where to begin, but perhaps the knowledge that the discussion above, though well intentioned is completely off base by considering thermal neutrons, when fast neutrons are the major activation concern (and the cross sections are wildly different).

.

Just to point out how far from reality, even well intended logically guided scenarios can stray...Cl-38 is typically responsible for the highest radiation levels from activation for the first two hours. [6]http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA382462

.

I am a bit disturbed at the above talking points, wherein it was asserted and apparently accepted that the only potential candidates for activation in the atoll, significant enough to be of concern, were Oxygen-16, Hydrogen-1, Sodium-24 and Chlorine-36. Not only is that missing many significant components of sea water, it is missing the atoll floor 90 feet below! Sea water and the atoll floor below are rich with isotopes that are readily converted by neutron activation in to dangerous short lived radioisotopes. Iron, Cobalt, Iodine, Manganese......
Other significant activation products that play a important part are the shell casing and other parts of the weapon that were not the actual fissile material. Once again, Iron, Cobalt and Manganese are very significant there.

70.171.44.124 (talk) 10:03, 29 August 2013 (UTC)BGriffin . It is disappointing to find upon returning to this page nearly a year later, that misleading and inaccurate assumptions persist in this article relating to the radioactivity results of nuclear weapon detonation. . Among the more significant problems: - The focus and time spent in the article on sodium activation with the implication it was one of the major problems. With a 15 hour half life, although it would present a problem initially, it is certain not to have contributed to the problems decontaminating, as levels would be below detectable in a month from that activation product alone. - The apparent exclusive consideration of thermal neutron cross sections when fast neutrons are going to be dominant. - Assertion and reliance on unsupported ideas such as the idea that fission products are heavy and will sink to the bottom while sodium will stay in solution. That particular one is interesting because two wrong ideas had to join to make it possible. Not only are some very common fission products likely to end up in compounds that are unlikely to settle out...take xenon and iodine fission products for example, but atomic mass and solubility are not reliably correlated. - Completely ignoring the most important group of materials in respect to producing problematic activation products...the structural material of the bomb itself. - Problems that don't even require checking outside this reference to understand something is wrong. In the section on plutonium that hadn't undergone fission, at the top of the article, a 'tolerance dose', maximum allowable exposure, is noted as 1 microgram, yet at the end of that section 2 milligrams is claimed to be 2000 'lethal' doses. Does anyone honestly believe the maximum allowable exposure is the same thing as a lethal dose? . . I'm sure the intentions were noble, but the outcome is regrettable. Unfortunately there seems to be quite a bit of room for this type of inaccuracy. I enjoy a good piece of fiction as much as the next person, but one qualification for fiction being good is that it isn't trying to pass itself off as legitimate truth. . 174.64.101.220 (talk) 18:50, 23 July 2014 (UTC)BGriffin

Citation/Reference behavior in mobile format viewing

Let me first say I very much appreciate the copious and detailed references, cutes, and notes. Very helpful in learning deep detail. But in just this particular article I'm seeing odd behavior not seen with any other article. And it's only seen when reading using the mobile format. Every citation (that i checked) from the "Able" header to the end of the article not only pops up the reference, but redirects your position in the article back to the beginning of the Able header. Even if you are reading in a different header (Baker), and even if you collapse the Able header, the redirect opens it.

What is the cause of this? I tried looking at the raw text but nothing stands out to me. Clearly though the behavior is different than any other article, and it's maddeningly frustrating. Any clues?

24.15.12.200 (talk) 09:54, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Unencyclopaedic language

'Had the Nevada been fully manned, she would likely have become a floating coffin, dead in the water for lack of a live crew.'

Not the right tone. Does this mean 'Had the Nevada been manned, all on board would probably have been killed.'? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.98.178.11 (talk) 18:52, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Atomic veterans

Johnfos, the issue of military service members' exposure to radiation is already covered to some extent in the current article. Details about individual's exposure like that of John Smitherman and their battle to gain recognition and compensation are better handled in the Atomic veteran article. — btphelps (talk to me) (what I've done) 18:09, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for that, Btphelps. I will write a paragraph on Smitherman and put it in the Atomic veterans article. Johnfos (talk) 06:26, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference p2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference proceedings was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Weisgall 1994, pp. 259–261.
  4. ^ "Operation Wigwam" (PDF). Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Retrieved April 14, 2013.
  5. ^ http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/periodic/crosssection.html
  6. ^ http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA382462

Inaccuracy re: use of 'demon core'

A recent article by Alex Wellerstein (who as far as I know is a well regarded nuclear historian) claims that the demon core was not used in Operation Crossroads: it had been scheduled to be used, but was still too radioactive by the time of the test and was later melted and used in a new bomb. Since there are cited claims to the contrary already in the article, it would be great if someone with the requisite knowledge in the field could look into this further and make the correction if necessary.

--Doncurzio (talk) 18:00, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Bruce Conner's Crossroads film

Artist Bruce Conner assembled a film from the Croosroads military footage in the mid-60s. An excerpt is available here. It's quite remarkable:

http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/07/15/creepy-world-of-bruce-conner/

--Pete Tillman (talk) 17:52, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Just watched it. Two points: All the films from Crossroads, indeed almost all nuclear footage, was silent. In the 50s and early 60s, there was no convenient, portable means of recording sound without a large roomful of gear (optical track sound), until the commercial portable tape recorder became available. All the sounds were dubbed in by Lookout Mountain, a section of the Air Force that processed all the film into top secret movies. So despite Connor's statement that it is all "true", the sound was dubbed for his movie as well, and turns out to be totally misleading in its ferocity. I don't think he even used LM's dubs, he re-invented his own.
The second concerns the guy who wrote the article about the film: He calls the phenomenon a mushroom cloud, but it was no such thing. It was a fountain of water that proved itself such by rising no higher than a mile and a half and then collapsing back into the lagoon withiin a couple of hours leaving nothing to rise any higher in the atmosphere, unlike what it does on land. In particular, no fallout, except within a couple of miles of the test. But then, he was being an art critic, not a physicist. Such inaccuracies do, however, find their way into the popular culture, giving me my soap box to stand upon. I didn't find the film very remarkable, but I've steeped myself in this for decades. SkoreKeep (talk) 18:59, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

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Proposal for change for all infoboxes

The previous test 'Trinity' uses an explicit image size 300px. All following ones don't specify it leaving default(pretty tiny) image. I'm not sure if most users are aware of or bother to change the default thumbnail size of 180 px in preferences. In addition the locations are listed separated by ; instead of using a plainlist (to ensure separate entries go on different lines)

The result is that in some tests the locations are exceeding hard to read and are jumbled together. Also there are too many line breaks because the infobox width is mainly taken from the image.

I propose to change all images to larger size (like Trinity) by changing the template upright=1.14 to upright 1.5 and change locations to plainlist. I did some tests on 'Redwing' and others and it looks better. Also the Infobox headers are not broken.

Here is the edited page (we can revert if needed) Operation Redwing

I just wanted to OK this with someone because its a big change affecting many pages. I suspect this page was the one that started the trend and others copied it. Crazytrain411 (talk) 20:29, 25 May 2017 (UTC)


Update: After a lot of investigation, found that infobox width can be adjusted. Changing location lists to plainlists and increasing the width slightly(along with slight image size increase) on the template itself solves the jumbled location problem and looks much nicer.Crazytrain411 (talk) 16:06, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

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