With, a job very nicely done by Sandia under Shuster and Holingsworth, but
was necessary to furnish and modify one or more B52's as drop aircraft.
The bombing procedures and equipment were of necessity somewhat different
than those used by SAC.

This job was accomplished by the Kirtland Air

Force, whatever their name was in conjunction with Sandia personnel
remarkably short time.

in a(f7sort

| will mention here a small problem in command and AESwe

control that gave me a heartburn during the operation.
operated in so many places,

Since it had been

it was necessary for Starboard and | to fly

back and forth between Johnston

etc.

TS ve

Island, Christmas

Island, Hawaii, Washington

At the time of the particular incident | am relating Starboard and

| were on Johnston Island preparing for a high altitude shot while an air
(aA

drop was being prepared in Hawaii with Admiral Muston ef contro! at Christmas
Island.

tn the midst of our ongoing and continual flap on Johnston Island,

we received word that one of the LASL devices wes

Barber's

_ Point.

in WexkKx

The problem in my mind was clearly the question of the safety

of the B52 crew from the point of view of

While

we were pondering that question, word came from Jim Hall of LASL to go ahead
and drop the bomb and the communication system was such that | didn't catch
it until they were half way to Christmas Island.

From the labs point of view

the problem was to fire the bomb before the

the bomb wouldn't operate properly.

Low where

| would have stopped the shep had the

communications allowed it, at least until

i was sure of the safety problem.

HOwever, to the best of my knowledge, nothing untoward occurred.

)

! should also mention here the problem of target rafts.

The Cherokee shot

kad at Bikini had taught us that we wanted nothing to do with offset bombing
if we wanted a target.

The target was also helpful from the experimentalist's

point of view in being able to ppint his apparatus at peace and quiet before
the bomber appeared overhead.

Select target paragraph3