Dawn came as the crew worked at retrieving the long line, but the sky was pale and strange. After a few hours what at first looked like a gentle snow began to come down, though the men quickly realized it wasn’t snow but something more like sand or maybe ash. It was gray and it coated everything. Some of the men thought it might be salt and a few of them picked up a pinch and tasted it. Misaki thought maybe it was volcanic dust and he again checked his charts to see if there was a volcanic island nearby that could have erupted or even exploded like Krakatoa. But he couldn’t find anything.
Whatever the gritty stuff falling out of the sky was, it continued to rain down on the ship, turning everything it touched a milky, sickly shade of gray. The Lucky Dragon started to look like an apparition. The men tried to wash down the main deck and some of the fishing gear and found that the dust, which seemed heavier and stickier than either sand or salt, was hard to clean away. Some of the men complained of aching eyes, and later on others noticed that they weren’t hungry at mealtime. A couple felt nauseated. Just before midnight, Shinzo Suzuki, who’d been the first to see the frightening light, got out of his bunk to stand watch and promptly threw up.
The Lucky Dragon set its course for home. One by one, the crew fell ill. Their eyes hurt and were clogged with grit and an oozing, yellowish discharge. Suzuki could not get out of bed. The men felt their skin begin to itch and burn, especially the palms of their hands where they’d handled fishing lines covered with ash. Sores appeared on their skin, and they noticed that everyone looked as if they’d gotten a sunburn. Misaki thought there was something about the ash that wasn’t right, and he collected some—it was still all over the ship—and stored it in a bowl by his bunk so that somebody could investigate it when they got back to port. The radioman Kuboyama thought the same thing and put a sample of the ash wrapped in paper under his pillow. But nobody tried to get rid of the dust, which wasn’t just on the decks and the gear, but was now on everyone’s clothing and in their hair and in the galley where they ate.
As the Lucky Dragon neared Japan some of the crew found that their hair was falling out. Kuboyama, who everyone agreed was the best-educated man among the crew, regarded this latest symptom with alarm. He recalled that hair loss was one of the after-effects of exposure to radiation that had occurred in the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He met with Misaki and the two of them agreed that the whole crew should visit the hospital as soon as the Lucky Dragon made port. By the time they reached Yaizu harbor on March 14, 1954, the men looked terrible. Their “sunburns” had deepened to the point where their faces and hands looked blackened. Everybody was convinced the Lucky Dragon had wandered into the Pacific Proving Grounds, an area in the Marshall Islands that was restricted because of ongoing nuclear testing by the United States.
This was puzzling, as the restricted area was centered on Eniwetok atoll, which had been the site for all of the U.S. nuclear tests in the Pacific since two atomic bombs had been detonated at Bikini atoll in 1946. Eniwetok was three hundred miles west of the Lucky Dragon’s position on the morning of March 1, 1954. Somehow, nobody aboard the ship had gotten word that the restricted area had recently been extended far to the east in anticipation of a new series of tests at Bikini. Gradually it sunk in that what crew had seen that morning and what was now making them all sick could only have been one thing: an atomic bomb.
It turned out to be worse than that.
The Lucky Dragon never did enter the restricted area of the Pacific Proving Grounds, coming only within twenty miles of its eastern boundary—a position that should have been safe. What the ship ran into was not a line on a chart but rather the unintended consequences of a fierce arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union, combined with a horrific scientific miscalculation.
Experiments in nuclear fission, a chain reaction in which energy is produced by splitting the nuclei of heavy elements such as uranium or plutonium, had first been conducted in laboratories in 1939. It seemed likely that when the Manhattan Project was launched during World War II, the known principles of fission could be applied to building an atomic bomb. The certainty that Nazi Germany was working toward the same objective made development of a bomb all the more imperative. But as early as 1922, scientists had also speculated that the release of energy through a thermonuclear fusion reaction with hydrogen as a fuel—essentially the same thing that happens inside the sun—could be used in an explosive device. There were uncertainties, the most serious of which was the possibility that such an explosion might set off a chain reaction involving the light elements in the earth’s crust and atmosphere, instantaneously extinguishing all life and converting the planet into a star in an apocalyptic flash of light and heat. Subsequent calculations suggested that such a catastrophic event was unlikely—though the matter needed further consideration as different kinds of fuels were contemplated. The eventual “good news” was that a self-propagating, earth-destroying chain reaction could not be initiated by a bomb because so much of the explosive energy would dissipate as radiation.
During World War II, the scientists with the Manhattan Project worked simultaneously on the development of both the atomic and the hydrogen bombs. Although the latter was still largely theoretical, some of the researchers argued it should be the main objective, with fission devices needed only as triggers for hydrogen bombs. But the atomic bomb won out. On August 6, 1945, an atomic bomb called “Little Boy” destroyed the city of Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, “Fat Man” was dropped on Nagasaki. Tens of thousands died in both cities—most of them civilians who were incinerated or pulverized in the explosions—and many thousands more were sickened by radiation. Japan surrendered six days after the second bomb, and with the war at an end further development of a hydrogen bomb slowed.
But in August 1949, the Soviet Union, a onetime ally that had evolved into a potential enemy, successfully tested its own atomic weapon. The United States—fearing a hydrogen device might be next for the Russians—urgently renewed work on a thermonuclear bomb. The early prototypes were not practical weapons, as they used large amounts of supercooled liquid fuels and were the size of buildings. The first explosive hydrogen device—it was far too big to be called a bomb—was detonated in a test called “Ivy Mike” on the tiny island of Elugelab, part of the Eniwetok atoll, on November 1, 1952. The initial fireball was more than three miles wide. It slowly transformed into a mushroom cloud twenty miles high and one hundred miles wide. An observation plane flying at 40,000 feet fifteen miles away detected a heat pulse on its wings of more than ninety degrees Fahrenheit. Elugelab was erased; in its place was a water-filled crater more than 160 feet deep and over a mile in diameter. When scientists examined debris from the blast they discovered that the periodic table would have to be enlarged, as two new heavy elements—later named “einsteinium” and “fermium”—had been created in the nuclear inferno.
As impressive and frightening as Ivy Mike was, the Air Force demanded faster development of an “emergency capability” weapon, meaning one that could be produced efficiently and at a size small enough for delivery from a bomber. A practical bomb also had to be light enough that its descent could be slowed by a parachute after it was released in order to give the plane enough time to escape the ensuing blast. A year and a half later, as the Lucky Dragon rode at ease on the dark Pacific swell east of the Marshall Islands, a new and compact “dry” device using isotopes of hydrogen and lithium as fuel sat waiting on a small patch of reef in the Bikini atoll. The test was named “Castle Bravo” and the device itself was called “Shrimp.”
The firing center for the Castle Bravo test was in a heavily reinforced bunker about 30 miles away, across the atoll’s central lagoon, on the island of Enyu. When the controller touched the trigger the sky itself seemed to explode in a hellish fireball that was visible more than 250 miles away. Moments after the blast, but before the sound from it reached Enyu, the bunker started to move. It took the men in the bunker a few seconds to realize that they were
feeling the ground shock wave, which travels faster than sound travels through the air, but which nobody had ever experienced before because it was normally absorbed by the earth over a short distance. This was an indication that everything had not gone as planned—which was confirmed as the mushroom cloud above Bikini atoll shot through the troposphere and into the mid-stratosphere some 114,000 feet above the ground, taking with it many tons of hot, irradiated coral reef and sand. A number of other islands in the atoll were leveled and a change in the wind from southerly to westerly sent the immense cloud of radioactive “fallout” careening through the upper atmosphere to the east, where some of it would come back to earth on top of the Lucky Dragon and its crew. Within days it was determined that a large section of the northern portion of the Marshall Islands—an archipelago of atolls and individual islands scattered over a thousand miles of ocean from east to west—was contaminated with radiation. Native inhabitants from several islands downwind of the test had to be evacuated.
Data collected during the test eventually showed that one of the Shrimp’s lithium isotopes that was expected to be inert instead amplified the fusion reaction, increasing the power of the device beyond what had been predicted. Castle Bravo was supposed to produce an explosion equal to six million tons of TNT. But Shrimp exploded with the power of fifteen million tons of TNT—two and a half times what had been expected and the equivalent of one thousand bombs the size of the one dropped on Hiroshima.
On its return to port, the Lucky Dragon and its unlucky crew became the object of intense curiosity and concern. The men were so dark they frightened people on the waterfront, and those with families were met with shock and disbelief at home. When the ship was inspected it was found to be contaminated with varying amounts of radioactivity—the highest levels being topside and on exposed gear. The Lucky Dragon was moved to quarantine on the opposite side of the harbor so it could be examined further before being burned at sea. Officials hastily tracked down the ship’s catch—which had already been auctioned off, mostly to fish markets in Osaka and Tokyo. They found the fish were also radioactive and had to be confiscated and buried.
Meanwhile, the crew, treated first by local doctors, then at more sophisticated facilities in Tokyo, grew more uneasy about their fate. The condition of the men puzzled medical authorities—who had plenty of experience with radiation sickness and who had the assistance of the American-run Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission in Hiroshima. The ABCC wasn’t a treatment facility, but a research organization that had been studying the aftereffects of the atomic attacks nearly a decade before. Yet no one who examined the men of the Lucky Dragon had seen symptoms like theirs.
Most of the crew seemed in good if less than robust health. Only Shinzo Suzuki had been too ill to work his watches on the return voyage, and although a number of crew members complained of poor appetites, it seemed unlikely that any of them had received lethal doses of radiation, as they would have been much sicker by then if they had. But the doctors were perplexed by the crew’s darkened skin and suppurating lesions. They were even more alarmed by the fact that the men were radioactive. Routine bathing and washing hadn’t completely removed the residue of the ash that had fallen from the sky onto the Lucky Dragon. Men who still had their hair—where by far the most radioactivity was detected—were shaved bald and scrubbed and rescrubbed until all the ash was removed. As the men’s dermatological symptoms improved, the doctors waited to see if they would become more ill before they got better, as this was typical in radiation exposure. And with one exception they did.
The crew of the Lucky Dragon would end up confined to the University of Tokyo Hospital for more than a year. Initially they suffered from fatigue and loss of appetite. Later it was bleeding gums, then falling white blood cell counts and compromised bone marrow. Treatments included frequent blood transfusions and the regular administration of antibiotics to fight infections. Some of the men developed liver problems and jaundice that turned their once-blackened skin deep yellow. After only a couple of months their sperm counts had fallen to zero.
But then everyone began to improve—including the radio operator Kuboyama, who in August spoke with reporters on behalf of the crew. Kuboyama said the men hoped they would receive compensation from the United States for their hospitalization and lost income. He said he was feeling much better. But a month later, as the rest of the crew continued to recover, Kuboyama took a turn for the worse and died of liver failure. Japanese and U.S. authorities disagreed over whether the cause was radiation sickness or a hepatitis infection Kuboyama might have contracted from one of his many blood transfusions. Either way, Kuboyama’s death was the direct result of his proximity to the Castle Bravo test and thus became a tragic emblem of what was by then a serious international incident. Japanese fishing boats at sea all across the Pacific radioed condolences. The American ambassador to Japan offered his sympathy to Kuboyama’s family and sent the widow a check for a million yen on behalf of the “American government and people.”
The story of the Lucky Dragon had, of course, made headlines in the United States—where officials were initially vague as to what kind of test had taken place at Bikini atoll on March 1, 1954. At first, the contaminated fish seemed to be the main concern. The New York Times reported that the catch of mainly tuna and shark from the Lucky Dragon was sufficiently radioactive as to pose a threat to human life, and frightened Japanese housewives were avoiding the normally bustling fish markets. Then, not quite two weeks after the Lucky Dragon came home shrouded in radioactive dust, two more Japanese fishing boats returned to port with dangerous levels of radioactive contamination after fishing in areas east of the Marshall Islands. None of the crew on either ship had fallen ill, but people were shocked to learn that one of the boats, the Bright God out of Shiogama, a port city northeast of Tokyo, had been exposed to the same “shower of radioactive ash” that had burned the crew of the Lucky Dragon despite being some 780 miles away from the Castle Bravo test site. The Japanese government, while conceding it had been informed the previous fall about upcoming atomic testing in the Pacific Proving Grounds, insisted that the Lucky Dragon never got any specific warning about the Castle Bravo test and never entered the restricted area.
On March 24, 1954, during a news conference, President Eisenhower acknowledged that the Castle Bravo test had produced an explosive force “never experienced before” that had “surprised and astonished the scientists,” who were now rethinking precautions for future testing. One immediate step the United States took was to enlarge the restricted area to encompass four hundred thousand square miles—about eight times the size of the original restricted zone. Then on March 28, three weeks after the test, the New York Times in an editorial abandoned the official description of Castle Bravo as a test of an “atomic device” and instead called it what everyone by then knew it was—a hydrogen bomb.
The Times said that the development of a hydrogen bomb was a cause for great concern under any circumstances, but that given what had happened to the Lucky Dragon even more caution was now needed to protect human and marine life in the mid-Pacific. Anticipating the concept of “mutual assured destruction” that was to become the central premise of a controlled Cold War, the Times took the occasion to hint that the U.S. victory in the race to build a hydrogen bomb meant that there was “still hope, though at present a faint hope, that the recent event in the Pacific may lead to some effective agreement with the Russians for the international control of atomic energy, no matter for what purpose it may be used.”
Public concerns did not slow the pace of testing in the Pacific Proving Grounds. Another hydrogen bomb was exploded at Bikini atoll on March 27, 1954, followed by another on April 7, then by three more detonations—one “boosted fission” device and two hydrogen bombs.
In early April, the Japanese government asked the United States to halt future testing in the Pacific Proving Grounds during tuna fishing season, which ran from November to March, and to ensure that the Japanese commerci
al fleet received advance notice of all upcoming tests. U.S. officials started negotiating financial compensation for the crew of the Lucky Dragon, while at the same time striving to reassure the public that there was no general radioactive contamination of fish in the Pacific Ocean. Japanese officials were dubious.
In July 1954, a team of Japanese scientists visited Bikini atoll, where they found fish and other marine life “seriously affected” by the H-bomb testing. This was the same conclusion reached in 1947, a year after the previous testing at Bikini, when it had been reported that “everything that grows on Bikini or swims in the water is radioactive.” Even so, the scientists seven years later endeavored to calm fears about seafood back in Japan by eating some raw fish caught in the waters near Bikini atoll, apparently without ill effect. Their report said that although fish in the area were “radioactive about the gills and internal organs,” it seemed to be safe to eat their flesh. Three months later, a large catch of tuna arrived at Yokohama in which one of every ten fish was found to be radioactive. They’d been caught one thousand miles east-northeast of the Marshall Islands.
The fleeting, cataclysmic chain reaction at the center of a nuclear explosion has been likened to a small manmade star that appears for an instant and annihilates everything nearby. In July 1945, scientists working on the Manhattan Project wondered exactly what would happen when they exploded the Trinity device in the first-ever nuclear test in New Mexico that month. Most were confident—though not certain—that earlier calculations suggesting the bomb might set the atmosphere on fire were wrong.
The intended consequences of such a weapon in battle—death and destruction on a massive scale—had also been predicted. Devastation would be caused only partly by the heat and radiation that would vaporize everything close to the blast. The main destructive effects would come from the shock wave traveling outward and extending over a much larger area. Because the earth would absorb and also reflect much of the energy from a blast at ground level, a bomb would have to be detonated in the air above its target to achieve maximum results. Little consideration was given to the secondary contamination of remote locations from radioactive debris transported high into the atmosphere. But such fallout was to become the great fear of the nuclear age.
On a Farther Shore Page 24