SN rn hg SR I aes 1 tg testing of the most powerful explosive device ever to be detonated by man. They stayed on Rongerik as a Radiation Safety team connected with Joint Task Force Seven. Tney were the only inhabitants of the island aside from rats, flies, and coconut crabs. ‘Their quarters, while spartan, were well stocked with canned food, and water and they nad a refrigerator to keep food and dri:tks cold. Even early in the morning they must have begun to perspire--not because of the iteat, but from tne intense humidity of the island. The feelings of boredom and anxiety, of frustration and excitement must have permeated most of them to varying degrees. To some it was a job, to others an interesting experience--to some it was probably drudgery. islands were not always physically and psychologically kind to transplants from the mainland. ——— The paradisical Pacific There were no girls and no bars, no steak and no movies--at least on the island. better. On the ships, the men fared WVespite this, however, it was a well-known practice for enlisted men, weary of the duty, to slip radiation badges into their shoes and thus receive their maximum dose of radioactivity rapidly from the relatively "not" decks of the Task Force snips so that they might be transferred. (90) But there was little cnance of this on the island, since the test would be more than one hundered miles away. The men checked their small radio unit, over which they would naur of tne "things" detonation, their badges and the radiation monitoring device. of familiar objects was a confort in itself. The checking and rechecking There was no reason to > ee ——— am ee me 2 toee building as they prepared to take oovservations in connection witn the