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From: gunter@antlia.cc.uwa.OZ.AU (Gunter Ahrendt)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Disposition of American Battleships
Message-ID: <1990Oct24.011853.19486@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 24 Oct 90 01:18:53 GMT
References: <1990Oct5.034136.546@cbnews.att.com> <1990Oct18.020858.5946@cbnews.att.com> <1990Oct19.032152.11702@cbnews.att.com> <1990Oct22.035601.17395@cbnews.att.com>
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From: gunter@antlia.cc.uwa.OZ.AU (Gunter Ahrendt)
ut-emx!osmigo@emx.utexas.edu (rn) writes:

>From: ut-emx!osmigo@emx.utexas.edu (rn)

>[discussion of U.S. battleships mentions the Bikini Atoll tests]

>Quite often, I see that bomb on some documentary on TV, where various
>ships are swallowed up by this huge nuclear blast. Does anyone know 
>what the effects were on these ships? Were they vaporized? Capsized? 
>Fragmented?

>Ron Morgan
>osmigo@emx.utexas.edu

Most of the ships looked like they had been burnt out after the blast. 
Charred wrecks were all that remained. Canons were badly deformed, some ships
listed badly. There was an excellent documentary on TV, with full color
footage of the entire Operation Crossroads, and made for facinating viewing.
After the blast all ships were boarded and checked out, poor sailors
actually went aboard in normal atire. The sight of all these ghostships
lying as far as the eye can see was very eerie. They had live animals aboard
some of the ships to see how (if) they'd survive. They showed one of the goats
that did. It was badly blistered and well....you can imagine.

One of the senators that witnessed the blast from a very safe distance, 
complained afterwards about how the Army had kept them to far away and he
was disappointed by not seeing enough or being close enough. Most of the
sailors that were closer and got covered in the spray from Baker (underwater)
test are dead now from radiation poisoning. They interviewed a crew member
who died shortly afterwards in the mid 80's. He had a hand that looked like
a baseball glove (in size too), and both his legs were swollen to twice
their size. Of course no one knew at the time what would happen :(