Operation Ivy sas a

igh yicie" explosion, Test Kin_. from an air drop

north of the northwest tip of Runit Island.
Associated with the grcater yield of Mik§ which was dozens of times
Greater than previously experienced yields, was a corresponding increase in the
fallout radiation.

Contrary to the usual direction and contrary to expectations,

the winds prevailing at the time were from the south or southeast,2 and-so
most of the radioactive debris fel] on the open seas to the north and northwest.

Since these islands continuec to be uninhabited, no harm resulted to humans
from this local fallout.
U.S. tests were conducted only at the Nevada Proving Grounds in 1953,
thereupon starting the pattern of tests entirely at the Nevada Proving Grounds
or the Pacific Proving Grounds, each on alternate years.

The next series

of tests in the Pacific was in 1954 under the name Operation Castle.. It involved

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Nevertheless, local fallout did occur on the northern islands of the Atol).

a task force, which retained the number Task Force Seven of the 1947 force.
Five out of the six tests in this series were at Bikini Ato#1, which had not
been used for nuclear tests since 1946, and one of these had consequences
affecting all testing in the Pacific.

The 15-megaton thermonuclear tests

Bravo in this series was conducted on the surface in Bikini Atoll on 28

February 1954,4210
The radioactivity of this Bravo event was particularly troublesome by
unexpectedly being carried to the east, rather than to the north as had been
foreseen.

Harmful amounts of radioactivity fell out on the inhabited atolls of

Rongelap, Ailinginae, and Rongerik and on the Japanese fishing ship (Lucky
Dragon).

These events resulted in sharply renewed interest in radiological

consequences, with principal focus on the Bikini series of tests.

The

Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission which had been established after the atomic
~

The Shunkotsu Maru of the Japanese

9.
1A,

Melvin P. Klein, “Fall-Qut Gamma Ray Intensity" Lawrence Livermore

Ladoratory Rerert, UC&L-5125, (1958)
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bombing of Japan, became involved.
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