Bob wrote: Wordslinger wrote:
Having watched my first Atomic Bomb Test in the late 50s
Damn now I really am envious. I would give my right arm to be able to witness an atomic bomb blast.
What was it like?
I had just been transferred to the 865th AC&W Squadron, located on a mountaintop about 80 miles west of Las Vegas. Our radar site looked down on the Mercury testing range.
I had been there about a week when a sergeant informed me there was a test shot scheduled for the next morning. If I wanted to watch it, I should get up around 0500 hrs and go over to the chow hall. We we're up around 8,600 ft on a mountain called "Angel's Peak." The orderly room, maintenance buildings, fire station, supply and several barracks were all dug down low because of the high winds. A thousand feet above us the actual peak stood, with our radar station situated on top.
Early the next morning I put on a parka and made my way to the chow hall. There were some 300 airmen stationed there, but there weren't more than ten or fifteen men having coffee and breakfast -- most of the men had been there for months and had seen nuclear test shots. I guess, in a bizarre sense, they weren't excited by them anymore.
I sat at a table with two other guys who were discussing the girls they had met the last weekend in Las Vegas. In the background a voice coming to us over a speaker said: "H-minus 24 minutes and counting. . ."
Gibbs -- one of the men at my table -- evidently got laid the last weekend and was laughing about his adventure.
H-Minus 13 minutes and counting.
At H-minus 5 minutes an officer came in to the room and announced that if anyone wanted to view the test shot they should assemble on the outcropping behind the orderly room. I pulled on my parka, flipped up the hood, put on my gloves and made my way to the viewing area. It was first light but still too dark to see anything out in the distance.
There were about 12 guys gathered together. The Lieutenant told us to "listen up." The device is mounted on a tower exactly 38 miles in that direction," he said, pointing off to the west. "At ignition there will be a flash of light, some 2,000 times brighter than the sun. The flash will be followed by a fireball that eventually disappears into a rising mushroom cloud. We won't hear anything or feel anything here, because the explosion's shock waves will come across the desert floor and roll around these mountains. They'll take out windows in Las Vegas, though. You men need to make a decision . . ." H-minus three minutes and counting," the voice came over another speaker. "
"If you want to observe ignition, get a pair of goggles from this box and put them on. Without them, the flash will burn out your eyes instantly. If you want to observe the fireball -- which, by the way, is a lot more interesting -- then at H-minus ten seconds, turn your backs to ground zero, close your eyes tight and cover them with one of your arms. After the flash, you can turn around to watch the fireball .. . "
"Excuse me, Sir," I asked.
"Yes airman?"
"If I've got my back to ground zero and my eyes shut tight and tucked up against my elbow, how do I know when to turn around."
"You'll know. Any other questions from anyone?"
At H-minus ten seconds I turned, shut my eyes tight and tucked them into my elbow. At zero, I saw a brilliant patch of bright red with a black bar through the center. The light from the bomb was reflecting off the steel wall of the orderly room and what I was seeing, through my shut eyelids, was the flesh and bone of my arm. In an instant the flash was over and I turned around to see a growing, writhing fireball, like a huge golfball that changed colors and finally collapsed and became a mushroom cloud. We at near 9,000 feet. The cloud was 5 or 6 times that high. The clouds base roiled with orange and purple flames.
An hour later, back on my bunk in the barracks, what I had seen provoked an intense, frightening realization: These people -- our leaders, our generals, the politicians . . were totally insane. If you saw Kubrick's film Dr. Strangelove, the theme was accurate. General Curtis LeMay and SAC were hoping they would get to use THE BOMB and take out Russia -- no matter what the costs. l G
I saw several more airbursts and then the first underground shots -- a few of which broke through the surface and sent clouds of radioactive dust drifting towards St. George, Utah.
Today's leaders are just as nuts, and today's generals are every bit as anxious to "prove" their worth. War is what it always has been -- crazy, sick shit.
Reality.
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