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Geography of the Proving Ground and Background
of the “Bravo” test of March 1, 1954
The ?farshall Islands are a group of atolls which mark off the southern
boundary of the Nor<h Pactfic Basin, lying about 10° north latitude roug~~y
halfway between the Hawaiian Islands on the east and the Marianna Islands on
the west.
The only inhabited places between the Marshalls
and the Aleutians
north of the fiftieth latitude are Wake Island about 500 miles due north and
Midway Island about 2700 miles north-northeast.
This open area to the north
and”west of the Marshalls was a major consideration
in the selection of
Eniwetok and Bikini Atolls, lying about 200 miles apart on an east-west line
at the westernmost end of the Marshall
chain, for the testing of new generations
of nuclear weapons (l).
The Marshallese
who inhabited Bikini and Eniwetok were transported, after
proper negotiations and settlements,
to newly-built
villages on other atolls
or islands before the technical buildup began for the first test in July 1946 (1),,
The reference cited describes among other things the environmental
surveys under
AEC sponsorship that preceded and followed these tests.
The first two tests in the Marshalls
Bikini Atoll (4).
and two in 1952.
were conducted without incident at
The next nine were at Eniwetok,
three in 1948, four in 1951,
The eighth in this series, the first experimental
device, probably approached the megaton range.
stratosphere and created appreciable
thermonuclear
The cloud top penetrated into the
amounts of fallout.
As planned, the fallout
from this detonation was carried away by a wind blowing from the east-northeast.
Some of the radioactive debris fell into the lagoon, and on the narrow band of