r
It was obvious that the Bikini leaders refused to accept
the fact that they would not be allowed to return to Bikini
some day and
for that
reason preferred to
of neighboring Rongerik to a new move,
suffer the hardships
in hope of being able
to return to their ancestral home,
|
It
was decided however,
that
the best
interests
of the
Bikini people would be served by transferring them to Ujilang
Atoll,
the westernmost of the Marshalls.
the government,
Ujilang belonged to
as heir to the Imperial Japanese government
which had seized 1t from its former German owners, who had
“purchased” the tiny atoll from its former chief.
A group of Bikini men and Navy Seabees arrived at Ujilang
in late November to prepare a village for another resettlement
attempt.
Shortly after their arrival, an annoucement was made
that the atoll of Enewetak,
Ujllang,
would be
atomic weapons.
west of Bikini,
commandeered as another testing ground
It
was then decided that
tanta would be resettied on Ujilang.
people right where
undoubtedly with
and north of
they were
the Enewetak
for
inhabl-
This left the ex-Bikinti
six months earlier,
but
increased feelings of insecurity,
frustration
and general bewilderment.
In January of 1948 Anthropologist Leonard Mason of the
University of Hawaii, made a field
at
the request
of the Navy.
He
investigation of
the problem
found among other things that
the relocated Bikinians were suffering serious hardships on
Rongerik,
and,
despite a well-organized
BM 505555;
communal
organization