placed into effect.

This aircraft was found on ii March, however,

110 miles southeast of Kwajalein, having crash landed on a sandy
beach at Ailinglapalap Atoll with no injury to personnel.
During the forty~eight hours preceding

SHOT /

» some

1,400 persons departed the island camps at Bikini and were shuttled by LCM, LCU, and helicopter to TG 7.3 ships in the Bikini Lagoon.

All non-surplus and valuable material at the camps and work

areas nearer the shot site had been shifted southward to Eninman
and Enyu Islands in order to be at a safe distance from anticipated
blast effects.

Small craft which could not be accommodated aboard

the BELLE GROVE were moored or anchored in deep water in the lee of
Enyu.

The firing party remained ashore on Enyu, sheltered in the

specially constructed bunker from which the detonation cf the device
was controlled,
On the morning of 1 March at 0645 local the first shot in the

test series—the ‘S407evi ze-—was detcnated en the reef off Namu
Island at Bikini Atoll.

The test was highly successful; indeed,

the yield was much greater than expected, whith resuited in certain
effects not foressen.

The most immediate of these was the high

radioactive contamination of the Bikini eirstrip.

It was such as

to render it unusable until 10 March when it was reopened for linited service.

During the time the airstrip was not available fer

use, air transportation between the two atolls was furnished by two
PBM aircraft furnished by TG 7.3 and the SA-15 aircraft of TG 7.4.

}4

ND?

To supplement this transportation, TG 7.3 utilized as necessary the

Select target paragraph3