No Place to Hide; They Defied an Atom Bomb
New York: Bantam, 1949. Early printing. Mass market paperback. [8], 148, [4], pages. On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, during World War II. The aerial bombings killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only uses of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict. Japan announced its surrender to the Allies on 15 August, six days after the bombing of Nagasaki and the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan and invasion of Manchuria. The Japanese government signed an instrument of surrender on 2 September, ending the war. Back Cover - When pink murder mushroomed into a cloud of poisonous vapor over beautiful Bikini Atoll... he flew a mission over the target center--rigtht into the radioactive menace. When Geiger counters clicked a constant warning of mysterious particles that led to lingering death...he opened the sealed interior of a ship of doom before anyone else dared enter. David Bradley, medical safety monitor at Operation Crossroads, risked his career, his health, and his life in the greatest adventure of all time. To find out what the horrors for the next war would really be like, he lived through endless days of exposure to the world's most deadly weapon, the atom bomb. The book is a Harvard Medical School graduate's autobiographical tale of his work in the Radiological Safety Section in the Pacific in the aftermath of the Bikini atomic bomb tests, Operation Crossroads. In the summer of 1946, 42,000 military personnel and military scientists assembled on the Bikini Atoll, a coral reef in the Marshall Islands of the Pacific – some 2,500 miles southwest of Hawaii – for Operation Crossroads, a joint effort led by the United States Navy (USN); the United States Marine Corps (USMC); the United States Army (USA); the United States Air Force (USAF); and the United States Coast Guard (USCG) to carry out the first publicized testing of the U.S. Military’s atomic arsenal. The impetus for the tests originated from an inquiry made by future chairman of the Atomic Energy Council, Lewis Strauss who penned to Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal in a memorandum dated 16 August 1945 the need to test the navy fleet’s protection against atomic blasts out of fear of losing to obsolescence. Two tests were conducted–Abel and Baker–in 1946. Both tests consisted of the detonation of two plutonium-infused, Fat Man-style atomic bombs each with a yield of 23 kilotons of TNT (96 TJ). A test sample of 95 ships were stationed in the Bikini Lagoon. Over 175 reporters were stationed to bear witness to the testing, broadcasting for millions around the world alongside many invited guests that included senators, congressmen, a member of Truman’s cabinet, and invitees from the United Nations. In the prologue to the book, Bradley foreshadows the grim truths to which readers are about to bear witness. The U.S.S. Independence, a survivor of the Able and Baker tests, is being towed into San Francisco from Kwajalein, its once mighty hull now reduced to contorted mutilation that looked “less like a ship than a paper bag blown up and burst” having had endured the concussive pulverization of compressed water that traveled one mile per second. Though the ship remained afloat, it had to be towed due to the “invisible poison” of radiation that covered every square inch of the ship. Strictly off limits to anyone, the ship was quarantined off the coast of San Francisco and kept in strict isolation. Dr. David J. Bradley’s narrative account in 1948’s No Place to Hide, is styled as a travel log–a journal of his observations and responsibilities from May until October 1946 on the Bikini Atoll, each day of significance introduced with a dateline embedded within five distinct sections: Departure; Dress Rehearsal; Able Day; Baker Day; The Count of Ten. No Place to Hide gives great focus to the radiation dangers of atomic weaponry. Bradley was part of the team tasked with surveying the aftermath of the test bombs’ destruction with Geiger counters to catalog the “real threat of atomic weapons, namely the lingering poison of radioactivity”. Bradley’s team sampled water for radioactivity from the lagoon and the Pacific Ocean and tested marine life for radioactive decay. Scrubbing the ships with “lye, foamite, salt water, soap” had no effect at removing the radioactivity that clung to hulls, so sandblasting was optioned, but the work was tedious and carried a great risk of spreading radioactive dust into the air. This early in the atomic age, radiation, contamination, and cleanup were all unknown territory. Bradley gives mention to the overall feeling of disappointment that the bombs did not do more destruction than original estimates had predicted, as many of the ships were still afloat after the 520-foot airburst of the Able bomb. Scholar David K. Hecht lauds the book, stating that “No Place to Hide is not exclusively concerned with radioactivity; it also gives a detailed account of the preparations and events of the Bikini tests." Condition: Good.
Keywords: Atom Bomb, Atomic weapons, Bikini Atoll, Radiation, Operation Crossroads, Weapon Effects, Fallout, Blast, Thermal, Safety Monitor, Radiological Safety
[Book #90061]
Price: $45.00