And here is how an atomic bomb was detonated over the head of six men in July 1957. At the same time, five of them even volunteered, and the sixth was simply not told what he would need to do that day, until he showed up at work …
So who were these people, why did they end up there, and what happened next?
As the Cold War flared up, and the United States and the USSR tried to set a record for the amount of money spent on thousands of weapons not intended for use, the general public began to get a little nervous both about testing these weapons and about the fact that will happen if one of the two superpowers decides to take it to the next level, especially when rockets and missiles with nuclear warheads began to become a reality. Despite assurances that there was nothing dangerous about a nuclear-powered missile exploding directly overhead, the citizens of the United States did not buy it.
But putting the money on the table, Colonel Arthur Oldfield of the Continental Air Defense Command decided to prove it in practice by ordering it to be organized in this way. This particular test, dubbed "John," was part of Plumbbob's five-month nuclear test series.
In addition to the people associated with "John," these tests also included more than 18,000 other military personnel in relatively close proximity to nuclear explosions. The goal was to determine how the troops would act in combat with nuclear explosions nearby. The tests also included more than a thousand pigs (used to study the biological effects of detonation), which officials found it much more convenient to place as close to the epicenters of explosions as possible than people.
The five men who volunteered to take part in "John" were Colonel Sidney Bruce, Lt. Col. Frank P. Ball, Major Norman Badie Bodinger, Major John Hughes, and Colonel Donald Latrell. The sixth was a cameraman named Akira “George” Yoshitake - simultaneously the only one who did not volunteer to perform, and the only one who had to work during the explosion. His job, of course, was to capture the entire event for a cute little propaganda film to demonstrate that these nuclear missiles were perfectly safe to use in aerial combat over populated areas.
And on July 19, 1957, five extremely brave men and one operator, who undoubtedly overestimated the choice of his career and the correctness of his decisions, found themselves about 70 miles north-west of Las Vegas, on the Yucca Plain near the 10th Proving Ground … Next to them was a sign with the words “Epicenter. Population 5”(English version -“Ground Zero. Population 5”).
Promotional video:
Soon an F-28 jet flew overhead, firing a Genie missile equipped with a 1.5 kiloton W25 nuclear warhead. It was actually the first test of a nuclear-tipped missile, but luckily for humans, the unguided missile did not fail and instead flew straight for about two and a half miles at about 180 flight level (about 5.5 km). It then exploded directly above them.
“We felt a heat ripple,” said Major Badi. - Very bright light. Fiery red ball. The sky looks black from this. It boils over us. It quickly loses its color …"
Then the sound of a powerful charge was heard, about which Badi declared: “There is a wave! It's over guys, it happened! The mounds vibrate. It's amazing! Right over our heads! It's a huge ball of fire … It was the perfect, perfect shot."
Seemingly remembering that this was all meant to be a propaganda film showing that standing under a nuclear explosion is good family entertainment, Colonel Bruce then stated: “I only regret that not everyone was able to be here at the epicenter of the explosion. together with us . Shortly thereafter, he thanked the academy and noted that he felt devastated.
At this point, you might think that although the explosion itself did them no harm, other than maybe a stubborn case of tinnitus - there was not often talk of a silent killer associated with nuclear explosions - of course, these people must have been exposed to massive amounts of ionizing radiation. But it turned out that this is not the case. It was later determined that they had been exposed to little such radiation. In fact, much smaller than the F-89 pilot, and significantly smaller than those pilots ordered to fly through the atmosphere 10 minutes after the explosion.
The explosion, which occurred high enough in the atmosphere, also ensured that there was no suction of soil materials and, thus, a large cloud of radioactive particles. As for the radioactive materials from the bomb and radioactive dust already in the atmosphere nearby, they must have spread quite widely before falling.
Ironically, while all of this was supposed to show the safety of such nuclear missiles exploding high overhead, radioactive particles from these tests often deposited on nearby cities, even in Utah. As you might expect, the US government has paid nearly a billion dollars to date to residents of these regions who later developed health problems, possibly related to exposure to large amounts of ionizing radiation from the tests.
All of this suggests that each of these six brave men later in life got cancer at one point or another. However, it is not a fact that, in particular, this test contributed to this. All of them have been involved in a series of nuclear tests, many of which have been exposed to much greater exposure to ionizing radiation, with a cumulative effect that probably also contributed to the progression of cancer.
In the end, Major Hughes lived to be 71 and died of cancer in 1990. Lieutenant Colonel Badi lived until 2003 and died at the age of 83 from cancer. Colonel Bruce lived to be 86, died in 2005 from, you guessed it, cancer. Major Bodinger also died of cancer, we believe in February 1997, although it is not clear here because his grave is not listed on the US Department of Veterans Affairs grave locator. Colonel Latrell then contracted colon cancer at some point, although it is not entirely clear what he died of. In any case, he seems to have left this mortal world in 2014 at the age of 91. As for the operator George Yoshitake, although he had to fight stomach cancer, he lived to 84, dying in 2013 from a stroke.