CHAPTER IV, SECTIONS 6 and 7

the airfield at Peter with the schedule arranged

to meet all incoming and outgoing planes.

In June 1953 there were at the Jobsite a

total of 112 light vehicles under H&N control,
which included 44 ton jeeps, ton pickups, 3%
ton weapon carriers and 144 ton personnel carriers. Additions to this fleet were received as
follows:
July 1953 —
—
Aug. 1953 —

Oct. 1953 —

5- % ton jeeps
3 - 1% ton personnelcarriers
6 - 11% ton personnel carriers

5 - 14% ton personnel carriers

Nov. 1953 —
—
Dec. 1953 —
Mar. 1954 —

8 - 1% ton personnel carriers
5- & ton jeeps
3 - 1% ton personnel carriers
7 - 144 ton Dodge Power
Wagons

With the arrival of the military and scientific personnel the total number of vehicles at
the Jobsite was greatly augmented by those of
other agencies; these were pooled for most effective usage. The maintenance of all vehicles,

other than those at Fred, was performed by contractor personnel.

SECTION 7
COMMUNICATIONS
The need for reliable communication systems for the correlation of the entire enterprise
as a harmonious whole was manifested by two
conditions not encountered in previous test operations; (1) the use of one Atoll as the main

base for supply and field management with the
major portion of the work to be accomplished
on another Atoll 185 miles away, and (2) the

destruction of shore facilities on Bikini Atoll as
a result of the first test operation.
With the operations on two widely separated atolls, dependable interatoll communica-

tion was fundamental and requisite because

Task Force personnel were quartered and maintained offices on various ships, and the required
work was scattered throughout the various sites

of the atoll, the dissemination of information
pertaining to this work, the division of this work
into tasks, and the assignment of qualified personnel to the tasks for efficient accomplishment

was a difficult problem.

Dependable teletype facilities were installed
at Tare by elements of the U.S. Army Signal
Corps and were made available to the Contrac-

tor shortly after the first landing in October
1952. Although the delivery time from origi-

Due to radio-interferences that prevailed on

board ship, the transmission and reception of

messages over this circuit was often erratic
and unreliable. When this occurred, the radiophone network of Task Group 7.1 (EG&G),
which retained its terminal equipment in

Station 70 on site Nan, was used for emergency

calls. At times the ships CW-(Code) radio facilities were made available for transmission of
messages between Atolls.
Radio-phone facilities for communication
within an atoll were widely used. At both
atolls the Contractor operated and maintained
marine and administrative networks. The ma-

rine network provided the means for marinedispatcher-to-craft communication and the admin-

istrative network between offices and forces in
the field. For the terminals for forces in the
field, the equipment was installed in vehicles.
During the construction phase at Bikini Atoll
prior to the installation of the telephone systems, these radio-phone networks were absoiutely essential for the proper performance of

the work required. Walkie-Talkie sets were pro-

nator to addressee was measured in hours, on

vided for such operations as surveys, unloading
pulk fuel from tankers, communications between batch plants and concrete pours, and, in

tory. When immediate exchange of information

communications were not available. The U.S.

the whole this service was generally satisfac-

between atolls was necessary, the radio-phone
facilities of the U.S. Army Signal Corps were
made available to the Contractor. This service
was limited in use for security reasons. It was,
however, satisfactory until the terminal equip-

ment at Bikini was shifted from ashore to afloat.

general, on sites where other types of rapid
Navy intership radio-phone circuits were at

times used to transmit messages for the Contractor as needed between ships which were not
within the Contractor’s networks. Figure 4-35

shows a radio-phone installation in an LCM
oat.

Page 4-49

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