to the embarked tasis force personnel, and shipse Post-shc™ advisorise vere iseued prior to W plug 30 minutes to the Chairman AEC, army and CINCPACTLE as on. past-ehots;-indieating tine of detonation and a general statensn® of: safety ofpersonnel. The large ships, rolieved of operational requirements | to Fahain close-in, tumed south to am area 50 NM southeast of GZ. owl Based on a revorted aertal reading in the roentgen range approximately 10 NM south of the shot atoll, Wilson 3 was diverted at arrroximately H plus 3 houre v7 the helding pattern to proceed at existing altitude to a point 20 NM south of NAN, to sescend to. 1,000 feet and overefiy the air strip then to return to the holding pattern. Wilson 3 waa directed to make special reports at these points and when any significant radiation readings were ob= | tained. For the airstrip, Wilson 3 was also directed to report any visual observations of the condition of the strip. Radiation readings on this spew cial survey were essentially insignificant excert for a 6 mr/hr reading over | the strip at 1,000 feet. Wilson 3 reported the strip and outhern islands flooded and covered with debris. Subsequent grotmd survey of the strip in= | ideated the major portion of the Wilson 3 reading of 6 mr/hr probably was a combination of aircraft background and aerosol-type cloud in the vicinity. S On the basis of the Wilson 3 survey, a recommendation was made ani accep= ted to approach the shot stoll with the fleet to « point 10 south of NAB in frepcration for the preliminary damage surveys Considerable time had beers lost in moving the large ships south and in cheelcing the reported high inten= sity south of the atoll, In view of the small amcunt of experience with wat.r surface shota (ii0MEO being the first in U,3s testing history), cautious actions were imperative. Subsequent. movements snd events on shet day were. delayed for approximately one to two hours, a factor of considerabley less importance than taking an unnecessary risk with the embarked task forces Wilson 2 and Wilson 3 detected no appreciable contamination moving to~ +c ward ENIWETOK or UJELAND during the mrning of shot day, As a consequence, Wilson 2 proceeded to the upwind sector at H plus 5 hours. Wilson 3 was retained longer in the holding pattern to provide a safeguard agains any une usual circunstances,, but was directed by L400M to an upwind sector from GZ with limiting true bearings of 8§° and 115°out to a maximm distance of 500 NM. The altitude was srecified not in excess of 1,500 feet. ‘/ilson 3 was directe? to make a minimum altitude survey over each itoll in the sector area and to rerort the results of each such survey in adjition to routine reports. (This survey, made between 1500M and 190MM, indicated the following atolls with insignificant contamination: AILINCINAE, iONGELAP, RONGERIK, BIKAR, UTIRIK, T.KA, .ILUK, JEMO, WOPJE, MEJIF and LIKIZP, Survey altitudes ranged from 300 to 600 feet. Although some readings were as high as 7 or/hr at 450 feet, mich of these reading were aircraft background.) Based on the results of Jilson 2 in the upwind sector (small amounts of contamination in the vicinity of iONGEL\P) it was recommende: that the PC boat at RONGERIK move at least 50 NM to the south as a precaution. This was accep= tad, the PC boat subsequently being moved completely out of the area (for re= fueling and re-supply as well as radsafety reasons), The PC soat departed dONGENIK at 26133CM to 10-27N, 167<27E, SOA 18 mots, thence to BIKINI via Ney |