CHAPTER IV ON-SITE OPERATIONS Forward echelons of the Task Force and Task Group Headquarters began arriving at Eniwetok as early as the middle of Decenber, 1953. Within a month, the greater number of personnel from these headquarters was in the forward area and on 17 January 1954, Headquarters, JTF SEVEN, was officially activated on Parry Island. At that time, CJTF SEVEN Operation Plan No. 3-53 became Operation Order No. 3-53. Three days later General Clarkson arrived on Par- ry to assume overall command, The on-site phase of operations fell into two distinct perlods—the pre-shot, rehearsal period and the actual shot period. The areas of activity witnessing the greatest number of problems during these two periods were those of security, logistics, communications, and operations. And, in most every sense, the first three of the above categories were dependent upon or influenced by developments in the last of the above categories, _ The pre-shot period saw the rise of few significant problems for any of these categories, except for discrepancies revealed in various of the rehearsals and shake-downs. As the Operation passed into the shot phase on 1 March 1954, however, the unanticipated results of the[SHOT |\detonation, along with the new weather criteria imposed by these results, profoundly altered the course which operations were to follow; and this, in turn, brought corresponding changes in security, logistics, and communications 107