34 RADIOLOGICAL CLEANUP OF ENEWETAK ATOLL AMERICAN Killed & Missing Enjebi Is. Enewetak Is. Medren Is. ad I sre Other Wounded JAPANESE Killed & Burial Count 85 37 73 166 94 261 934 704 1027 195 521 2677 12 Prisoners Total 16 23 25 1201 858 1386 64 3457 32 FIGURE 1-34, CASUALTIES IN THE CONQUEST OF ENEWETAK ATOLL. Aomon, where a few houses and some coconut trees werestill standing. The total number of people gathered on Aomon wasII7; [8 had been killed during the battle. After its capture, Enéwetak was used primarily as a support or staging area. A 7,000-foot bomber strip was laid down on Enewetak Island. Little or no attempt was madeto clean up the debris resulting from the invasion. The beaches contained many rusting hulks of landing craft, tanks, and other vehicles. Ammunition, mortars, and other implements of war littered the land and the reefs. The coconut trees of the islands, which had been bombarded andassaulted, were largely destroyed.47 ; Years later, Iroij Johannes Peter spoke of the battle—the airplanes, the - bombs, the fears, the wounded, and the dead. Herecalled that these had been very sad times. After the surrender of Japan, all small naval vessels moving through the Marshalls picked up and carried repatriates back to their homeislands. Those whoreturned to Enewetak Atoll found that the U.S. military forces had placed all people from Enjebi and Enewetak Islands on Aomoninthe northeastern part of the atoll chain. The U.S. Navy provided building construction materials, food, and water.48 ., | The dri-Enjebi were not content with dwelling on Aomon because, in spite of its northern location, it was under the authority of the iroij of the dri-Enewetak. Consequently, the dri-Enjebi were moved to the neighbor- ing island of Bijire.49:50 Their stay there was also brief due to major events in other parts of the world. THE NUCLEAR AGE BEGINS: JULY 1945 The nuclear age arrived with the detonation of an atomic bomb on 16 July 1945 near Alamogordo, New Mexico. That test, known as the Trinity Event, was part of the Manhattan Project organized to develop the military application of atomic energy. In August of the same year, two nuclear (ee aos.