On July 27, 1946, Richard Ballenger, originally from Colfax, wrote a letter to his mother describing his firsthand account of a nuclear bomb test at Bikini Atoll on July 1, 1946.
The letter, which was published in the Aug. 2, 1946, Colfax Record, stated: “I saw the bomb go off and it sure was pretty. We were 12 miles away from it but it still vibrated the ship a little…About 15 hours after the bomb was dropped we went in…the water around there was boiling and also full of radioactivity…”
The test Ballenger witnessed was the first to take place at Bikini Atoll, a coral reef in the Marshall Islands. The bomb was dropped by the B-29 bomber Dave’s Dream and detonated over a target fleet of unmanned ships at a height of 520 feet. However, the bomb, which was to be dropped directly over the USS Nevada, missed by 710 yards. This resulted in the sinking of just four ships, with a fifth sinking the following day.
The second nuclear test at Bikini Island took place July 25, 1946, and was detonated 90 feet below the surface of the ocean while being suspended from the landing craft LSM-60, which was vaporized by the bomb. Nine other ships were sunk, but more troubling was the radioactive water that covered all the target ships. The Navy tried to decontaminate them, but the task was mostly unsuccessful and highly dangerous to Navy personnel.
Because of this, nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll was paused only to resume in 1954. But it should be noted that Richard Ballenger, a local boy from Colfax, witnessed just the fourth nuclear explosion in the history of the world.
News reports of the nuclear tests inspired fashion designer Louis Réard to name his 1946 two-piece swimsuit design the bikini.
Photo: Target ships near Bikini Atoll, c. 1946
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