-3The "warning area" igs an area surrounding the proving grounds
within which it is determined that a hazard to shipping or aviation
exists. We have established many euch areas as have other governments,
This map shows such areaa off the Pacific Coast at Point Magu, and off
the Hawaiian Islands.
Here is a large guided missile warning area
Britain off Australia,
Including our continental warning areas, we
from Florida across the Bahamas.
Here is one maintained by Great
have established a total of 447 such warning and/or danger areas.
This particular warning area was first ‘established in 1947, The United
Nations were advised and appropriate notices were carried then and
subsequently in marine and aeration navigational manuals,
Despite such notices there are many instances where accidents
or near accidents have resulted from inadvertent trespass in such
warning areas. The very size of them makes it impossible to fence
or police them. For the day of shot number one, the meteorologists
had predieted a wind condition which should have carried the fall-out
to the north of the group of small atolls lying to the east of Bikini.
The survey aircraft carefully searched the area and reported no
shipping. The shot was fired, The wind failed to follow the predictions .
but shifted south of that line and the little islands of Rongelap, Ronyerik,
and Uterik were in the path of the fall-out, A Japanese fishing trawler,
the FORTUNATE DRAGON, appears to have been missed by the
search but, based on a statement attributed to her skipper, to the
effect that he saw the flash of the explosion and heard the concussion
six minutes later, it must have been well within the danger area, The
23 crew members on the ship, 28 American personnel manning weather
stations on the little islands, and the 236 natives on these islands were
therefore within the area of the fall-out, The supposition that the actual
blast of the banb extended over such enormous areas is of course
entirely incorrect,
The Task Force Commander promptly evacuated all the people
from these‘ islands, They were taken to Kwajalein where we maintained
a naval establishment and there placed under continuous and competent
medical supervision, I visited them there last week, Since that time,
it has been determined that our weather personnel could be returned
to duty but are still being kept on Kwajalein for the benefit of further
REPRODUCED AT THE DWIGHT, D. EISENHOWER LIBRARY
observation,
Men, 5at
None of the 28 weather personnel have burns,
The 236
natives also appeared to me to be well and happy. The exceptions
were two sick cases among them, one an aged man in advanced stag
of diabetes, the other a very old woman with crippling arthritis,
Neither of these cases have any connection with the tests. Today,
a full month after the event, the medical staff on Kwajalein have
advised us that they anticipate no illness, barring of course disease
which might be hereafter contracted,
in the group and others are expected,
One child has been born -
The situation with respect to the 23 Japanese fishermen is less
certain due to the fact that our people have not yet been permitted
by the Japanese authorities to make a proper clinical examination,
It is interesting to note, however, that the reports which have recently
come through to us indicate that the blood count of these men is
comparable to that of our weather station personnel,
Skin lesions
observed are thought to be due to the chemical activity of the converted
material in the coral rather than to radioactivity, since these lesions
are said to be already healing, The men are under continual observation
by Japanese physicians, and we are represented in Japan by Dr, Morton
of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission and Mr, Ejisenbud of the
Atomic Energy Commission,
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