such time as the Air Task Group was reactivated for REDWING, ARDC was requested to assist in the planning for any future overseas tests.
This
planning was to. be conducted under the direction of, and in conjunction
with, Headquarters, JTF SEVEN.
All personnel previously assigned to
Task Group 7.4 were reassigned to various staff sections within the Air
Force Special Weapons Center or to its subordinates,
The various staff
sections of AFSWC were made responsible for planning or other actions
regarding the Air Task Group in the next overseas tests.
C.
A COMPARISON BETWEEN IVY AND CASTLE
CASTLE was a vastly more complex and ‘difficult operation than IVY. i
Operation IVY, the 1952 test series, had been a two-shot affair,
covering a two-month operational period.
The Air Task Group was based
on Kwajalein, approximately 290 nautical miles from the shot areas in
the northern reaches of Eniwetok Atoll.
KING Shot on IVY was an air
drop from a modified B-36 of (a oc: Shot, for
which all personriel in Eniwetok Atoll had been evacuated, was the world's
first megaton device.
In contrast, CASTLE was a six-shot operation, involving no air
drops, but five of the devices detonated were in the megaton range, making extremely careful preparation necessary.
The operational period cov—
ered nearly five months and was lengthened by almost daily postponements
of five of the shots because high winds in the upper atmosphere would
have placed several Pacific areas in danger of almost certain radioac-
tive fall-out.
Five shots were fired in Bikini Atoll and one shot, a
megaton device, was detonated in Eniwetok Atoll, location of Task
Group 7.4.
AFWUHO
[13