building as they prepared to take observations in connection with the testing of the inmost powerful explosive device ever to be detonated by man. They stayed on Rongerik as a Radiation Safety team connected with Joint Task Force Seven. Tney were the only inhabitants of the island aside from rats, flies, and coconut crabs. ‘Their quarters, wnile spartan, were well stocked witn canned food, and water and they nad a refrigerator to keep food and driiks cold. ven early in the morning they must have begun to perspire--not because of the heat, but from the intense numidity of the island. Tne feelings of boredom and anxiety, of frustration and excitement must have permeated most of them to varying degrees. To some it was a job, to otners an interesting experience--to some it was probably drudgery. The paradisical Pacific islands were not always physically and psychologically kind to transplants from the mainland. There were no girls and no bars, no steak and no movies~-at least on the island. better. On the ships, the men fared Despite this, however, it was a well-known practice for enlisted men, weary of the duty, to slip radiation badges into their shoes and thus receive their maximum dose of radioactivity rapidly from the relatively "hot" decks of the Task Force siips so that they might be transferred. (90) But there was little cnance of this on the island, since the test would be more than one hundered miles away. ‘The men checked their small radio unit, over which they would hear of the "things' ' detonation, badges and the radiation monitoring device. of familiar objects was a comfort in itself. . 48 wm 033) their The checking and rechecking There was no reason to