page 190 



ONE MILE BELOW, A MUD-SLINGER. Shown 

 at about the top of its rise, the millions of tons 

 of water thrown up by the Baker bomb break 

 through the enveloping condensation cloud be- 

 fore descending upon ships of the target array 

 one mile below. Explosion of the bomb beneath 

 the surface of the Lagoon subjected the sur- 

 rounding water to many unprecedented effects, 

 including intense neutron bombardment. This 

 produced artificial radioactivity, particularly in 

 the sodium, iodine, bromine, and potassium con- 

 tent of the water. Therefore most of the water 

 in the column was dangerously radioactive. The 

 bomb produced an amount of radioactivitv esti- 

 mated to have been the equivalent of many 

 hundred tons of radium. A few minutes ex- 

 posure to this intense radiation at its peak 

 would within a brief interval have incapacited 

 human beings and resulted in their death within 

 days or weeks. The drenching of the target ships 

 with this colossal amount of contaminated water 

 makes it understandable that they remained 

 radioactive "hot stoves" for days after the test. 

 Also for this reason animal casualties from radia- 

 tion were much more pronounced in the Baker 

 test than they had been in Test Able. 



