Assembly of the
Wevice was done in a shot czb on Ebertru, Eniwetor A toll, starting
testing, by Mar. 6,
early in January 1954and was completed, including the neceszary,
» Wheathe
a
1954, except for the installation of the,
was made, disassembly of ‘the device was Started, and
decision not to fire the.
parts were stored in theCamco building in the CMR area on Parry. The.__,components are
being shipped to the ZI for reclamation.
coe
One difficulty encountered duriry the assembly of the’
~
, was the appearance of anair Piugin the
line, which gaVé risto"a none xplosive bursting of
several of the,
“comfonents. Aporoximately one week’s effort was necessary to return
the 1
‘system to the operating condition that existed before the accident.
“The
device was constructed in a shot cab on EninmanIsland, BikiniAtoll, _
during the latter part of January and February. Except for the installation of the:
__ §theconstruction was esc:ntially con:zleted before the
“The |
Se mene
4.12
"shot.
i device was detonated at 0625 local time, Apr. 7, 1954.
TASK UNIT 15, TIMING AND FIRING
Prior to the operational phase of Operation Castle, TU-15 had planned to fire all the
devices from the manned CP, Station 70 on Enyu at Bikini, and Building 311 on Parry at
Eniwetok. Installations were made first at Bikini Atoll with the timing system controlled and
monitored from Station 70 where the radio signals were also generated.
Thefirst shot,
~ jwith its attendant radiological and personnel safety problems,
demonstrated the undesirability of manning the control station at least for large devices.
TU-15 reassembled and supplemented the Operation Ivy radio control equipreent and in-
stalled it on board the USS Estes with the receiving and Cecoding equipment on the 300-fi Enyu
tower. This system was checked out within a weekafter|L ‘and was used to fire the remaining Bikini shots.
No difficulties were experienced with the hard wire or radio signals, although some Blue
Boxes at great distances did not fire because (1) the transmission in general was low along the
line of sight and (2) as in Mike the first light emitt2:d was of relatively low intensity and predominantly red in color.
The Eniwetok shot was fired from a manned station on Parry, with the device located in
the Mike crater, and again no difficulties were experienced; the television and tone monitoring
systems were not used because of the cancellation of their respective shots.
The only timing-system failure reported on the operation was the failure to get a 1-min
radio signal by Sandia on
shot. The equipment had not been dry-run, but an analysis of
the failure will be attempted.
The Bhangmeters are considered a part of the timing system within the EG&G division of
responsibility and are reported herein.
The standard Bhangmeters did not trigger on shots where the transmission was low, but a
Bhangmeter in a B-36 airplane gave correct results on all shots at tactical distances and hence
proved the usefulness of the device for yield measurements from aircraft.
An experimental oscillographic Bhangmeter gave results on all shots and yielded much information on the relative red and blue light levels as seen by photosensitive surfaces.
TU-15 had no great difficulty in maintaining timing systems for alternate firing in both
atolls and was in fact prepared to radio-fire in both atolls.
TU-15 would recommendthat, in the future, preparations be made to radio-fire all large
devices and to expand the radio time signal system so that hard wire need only be used In congested locations and for critical experiments. In this way the most satisfactory and economical
‘
system can be used.
W— 18