UNULASS!HED
On the fifth day after the test, a guard of two monitors each
morning and afternoon was set up on the test island, and the Beach
Radsafe Center established. This made the island more accessible to
the engineers who were to work on the portion where the intensity of
radiation was now below tolerance limits, It considerably reduced the
monitor demand on Task Group 7.6, and at the same time insured a closer
watch on the many parties that had mission on the test island,
The bogged tank was recovered from the crater, and work was begun
by the engineers to destroy the remains of the test structures en the
island in order to prevent any unauthorized persons from obtaining any
information on the effects of the tests,
On X=RAY=plus 9 the USS BATROKO shifted its anchorage te a location
off the test island for YOKE Day, and final preparations for YOKE test
were well underway. Two days later the island of X-RAY test was closed
to all personnel,
Preparation for YOKE Test
Installation of stakes, and the painting of numbers on various
structures of the test island facilitated island surveys, Three stakes
at hundred yard intervals were placed on the island immediately to the
north of the zero point for use in any surveys that might be made in
this direction, The stakes on the test islands were not located on a
systematic radial manner from the zero point as was the case in test
X-RAY, because the engineer structures were located in a cleared strip
extending along the lagoon side of the islands and about 300 yards wide.
It was planned to ignore, fer all practical purposes, the extensive palm
grove on the portion of the island teward the ocean, and which was expected
Because of the evidence of fall-out from the X-RAY test, it was
decided by higher authority to maintain monitors‘on the destroyer patrols
until YOKE-plus 4. Accordingly a monitor was assigned to each of following
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to beceme a mass of tangled rubble as a result of the test. ALL of the —
island survey monitors were throughly briefed.
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destroyers:
USS TUCKER (DDR 875)
USS SPANGIER ( DE 696)
USS GEORGE (DE 697)
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XOKE Day
A huge cloud resulting from the explosion of the atom c weapon was
. still plainly evident thousands of feet above the zero island whe: the
four helicopters came in on the southern tip of the island for a landing.
The Landing was made about twenty mimutes after H hour,
Major Cooina
jeep with Dr. Ogle aii Mr. Linnenberger went along the land cable to assist
in recovering the samples at various points along it. Major Sheppard
~5-
ml UNCLASSIFIED