from the target ships' companies under radiological supervision of monitors equipped with
radiation detection and measurement devices.
Initially, decontamination was slow as the
safe time aboard some of the target ships was measured only in minutes. As time progressed,

the

support

fleet

growth on the ships'

itself

had

become contaminated

by

hulls and seawater piping systems.

low-level

radioactivity

in marine

By 10 August, a decision was made to stop work in Bikini and tow the surviving target
fleet to Kwajalein Atoll where the work could be done in uncontaminated water.
The move
was accomplished during the remainder of August and September.
A major task at Kwajalein
was to offload ammunition stored aboard the target ships.
This work continued into the
fall of 1946. Personnel continued to work on target ships at Kwajalein into 1947.
Eight of the major ships and two submarines were towed back to the United States and
Hawaii for radiological inspection.
Twelve target ships were so lightly contaminated that

they were

remanned and sailed back to the United States by their crews.

The remaining

target ships were destroyed by sinking off Bikini Atoll, off Kwajalein Atoll, or near the
Hawaiian Islands during 1946-1948.
The support ships were decontaminated as necessary and received a radiological clearance
before they could return to the fleet. This decontamination and clearance process required
a great deal of experimentation and learning at Navy shipyards in the United States, primarily at San Francisco.
Finally, a formal resurvey of Bikini Atoll was conducted in the summer of 1947 to study

long-term effects of the CROSSROADS tests.
All CROSSROADS
keep personnel from
was considered to
without any harmful

operations were undertaken under radiclogical supervision intended to
being exposed to more than 0.1 roentgen (R) per day.
At the time, this
be an amount of radiation that could be tolerated for long periods
effects on health.

Radiological supervision included predicting areas of possible danger, providing trained
personnel equipped with radiation survey instruments to act as guides during operations

involving potential exposure, and elaboration of rules and regulations governing conduct in
these operations. Personnel were removed for one or more days from areas and activities of

possible exposure if their badges showed more than 0.1 R/day exposure.

About 15 percent of the JTF 1 personnel was issued at least one of the 18,875 film-badge

dosimeters during CROSSROADS.

had no potential

logical

Approximately 6,596 personnel were on islands or ships that

for radiaticn exposure.

Personnel anticipated to be at greatest radio-

risk were badged, and a percentage of each group working in less contaminated areas

was badged.

The maximum accumulated exposure recorded was 3.72 R, received by a radiation

safety monitor.

Lacking complete radiation exposure data, reconstructions have been made of personnel
exposures for unbadged crewmembers of the ships involved.
These calculations have considered the several sources of radiation at work in Bikini, such as the low-level contamination in the lagoon water, living aboard support ships, and boarding the contaminated
target ships.
The calculations relied upon radiation measurements recorded by radiation
safety personnel in 1946.
This data was used in a computer model that includes such
factors as the radiation-shielding properties of ships' hulls and realistic patterns of

daily personnel activity on weather decks and below. The actual movements of each ship
were then used to reconstruct a dose for the crew. Calculated exposures range from 0 to
2.5

rem

(gamma)

for support ships.

Exposures

for target ship crews that reboarded their

ships after BAKER were higher than those for support ship crews. A summary of film badge
readings (in roentgens} for July and August, when the largest number of personnel was
involved, is listed below:

Select target paragraph3