Placed under restricted availability on 9 March.
On 22 March, the
tapsco
crewmen and Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard personnel started to decontahhiinate
the ship.
OPERATIONS AFLOAT
By 4 March, most of the fleet units were again in Bikini Lagoon.]|
The
major units had withdrawn to Enewetak to offload excess TG 7.1 and 745
personnel on 1 March and prepare for the BRAVO follow-on operations.
The land areas of Bikini, as well as the lagoon surface, had recqived
a heavy fallout of the contaminated coral particles from the BRAVO sHlot.
Readings in tenths of roentgens per hour on Eneu in the southeast of jthe
atoll, and in tens of roentgens per hour on Lomilik in the north, wegle
made 10 days after BRAVO.
This meant that personnel could go ashore
[only
for short periods of time, but even then their cumulative doses builf
up.
The situation aboard ships in the lagoon was such that long-term
ften-
ancy was possible.
The fallout particles sank to the bottom and the
Pver-
lying water shielded the ships from the particles' radioactivity.
The land area in the southern string of islands had radiological
de-
cayed sufficiently by this time that work crews could go ashore and skay
long enough to clear the airstrip joining Aerokoj and Aerokojlol.
This
restored better air transportation between Bikini and Enewetak, which] had
been reduced to flying boat service in the interim.
Task force personnel lived aboard the major ships at Bikini and cpm-
muted via small boat or helicopter if work was required ashore.
Careful
control of exposure was required to avoid buildup over the Maximum Pefmissible Exposure.
OFFSITE OPERATIONS
BRAVO affected offsite operations.
Much effort was spent in resugvey-
ing the atolls that were evacuated immediately following the test.
Tile ob-
ject was to better establish the doses the inhabitants received and t@
do
some preliminary research on absorption of radioactive materials by fJora
232