For the Quince and Fig events it was necessary to establish a personnel
decontamination station on Runit. The traffic through this decontamination
station was very heavy and clothing requirements were such that it was necessary to move the laundry barge from Bikini to hancle the laundry load.
Since the primary problem was one of alpha contamination, a large part of
the clothing had to be disposed of because it was found too difficult to reduce
the contamination to acceptable levels. Respirato-4 and full face masks were
cleaned for re-use but booties, surgeon caps, glo-2s, and coveralls had to be
disposed of in many cases.
2.1.2—-The equipment decontamination station on Parry Island processed
a total of 800 items, including 56 vehicles and 9 helicopters. Numerous
pieces of small equipment were cleaned up for the various projects and for
H&N. Normal procedure called for all heavy equipment returning from shot
islands to be monitered on removal] from boats and directed to the decontamination station if necessary. Versene and citric acid were the common decontaminating agents employed, and a steam generator was used to provide hot
solutions for the necessary washing. When equipment was not needed imme~
diately it was held in a "hot" parking lot for varying lengths of time before
decontamination in order to reduce contamination levels by radioactive decay
of the contaminants.
2.1.3—The Operations Section of the Rad~Safe Center was responsible
for the conduct of all radiological surveys on the atoll, the majority of which
were made by H-19 helicopters. H-21 helicopters were not used for survey
purposes since the possibility of excessive crew dosage was always present
due to the configuration of the aircraft. In contrast to the H-19, where the
pilot's compartment was located above the engine, the H-21 provided no
shielding at all for the flight crew since the pilot's compartment wes simply
a plastic bubble on the nose of the plane.
.
Normal operations included a pre-entry survey at H+1 to H+4 hr, a detailed survey of the entire atoll at H+6 to H+8 hr, and detailed surveys on

the mornings of D+1, D+2, and D+3 days.
as required.

Additional surveys were made

The basic instrument used in the aerial surveys was the

AN/PDR-39 aurvey meter modified to read up to 500 r/hr.

|

The logarithmic

scale instrument built by Jordan Electronics, Inc., that proved so successful
on Operation Redwing could not be made to operate properly and eo it was

never used.

When necessary, data were radioed back to the Rad-Safe Center

from the survey helicopter by means of the helicopter radio net,

Plotting

and briefing stationa were maintained at the Rad-Safe Center and the J-3

office. -Grourd surveys of islands in the atoll were conducted when required.
The helicopter survey technique called for the pilot either to land the
aircraft at the desired spot so that a ground reading could be obtained or to
make a slow pass over the desired spot at an eleyation of 25 feet. Readings

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