The destroyer was subsequently ordered to start evacuationl|the follow‘ag morning, 4 March.
Between 1100 and 1300, 157 people were
underwent decontamination procedures on the destroyer en route
~@in, and debarked on 5 March.
Questioning of Utirik inhabita
closed that all had been evacuated.
The destroyers evacuating
and Utirik were also directed to obtain drinking water samples
atolls.
A check of these samples indicated the drinking water
from 2 to 28 times the task force standard allowance of radioa
taminants
(for full-time usage)
(Reference 65).
The status of Ailuk Atoll, with a reported population of 40
under consideration at approximately 2000 on 2 March.
The expe
without evacuation was determined to be less than 20 R, i.e., 1
the standard used by the task force for its sampling aircraft c
was the major factor in the decision not to evacuate Ailuk.
Al
populated atolls on the flight Able pattern received less cont
than Ailuk (Reference 26).
During the afternoon of 2 March, a directive was issued to
offsite monitoring flights Baker and Charlie on 3 March.
These
covered all Marshall Islands south of Kwajalein and were conduc
termine whether winds at the 20,000-foot (6.1-km) level could h
*
®
;
e
debris to the south and west and contaminated some of the south
shalls.
The flights were executed on 3 March, but no significa
contamination was found.
An additional flight (designated King)] covered
the Gilbert Islands on 6 March for the same reasons.
At the re
the task force, CINCPAC obtained advance clearance from the Bri
the Gilberts flight.
A maximum of 0.00008 R/hr on 6 March was reported
through CINCPAC to the U.S. Naval Attache in London (Reference 16,
p. K-10).
Throughout the actions involving evacuation of island inhabi rants, the
standard reference used to determine whether an atoll was popula ed was
OpNav 122-100-M, June 1951, Trust Territory of the Pacific Islan
229
S.