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Message
Love letter from my Grandfather to Grandmother in 1946 w/first hand A-bomb account.
Posted on 7/17/18 at 1:49 pm
Posted on 7/17/18 at 1:49 pm
When my grandparents passed away we discovered they had written each other every few days for the 5 years they had a long distance relationship - and kept the letters. I known my grandfather had been at the Bikini Atoll, but had no idea he documented the experience. A few interesting tidbits buried in here(Able bomb). Transcribed with the spelling mistakes left in.
He lived to be 84, even with the "look the other way and bury your head in your sleeve" method of nuclear bomb protection.
quote:
3 July, 1946
quote:
I got your letter this afternoon plus the picture and needless to say, I was glad to get them both. The picture looks to me like one of those you gettaken on the street when you arnt expecting it but judging from the smiles I kinda sorta think you were. I don’t exactly recognize the location except it looks to me like it was taken somewhere in the loop. Like when I was in Pearl I had some pictures taken on the base and also on liberty at Waikiki beach but alas-alak, they havent been developed yet. Reds has the film (it was his camera) and I still havent been able to contact him. It is also impossible to get any pictures taken around here because Navy collected our cameras and are holding all of them someplace for us until we pull out of here.
quote:
Nothing exciting has happened around here except a bomb exploding and my finding a caterpillar in my beans this noon during chow. The boys around me turned green and refused to eat any more beans and were slight agag when I finished mine off. I must say that it had more meat on it than the pork chop that was lying on my plate – pardon me, tray. That atom in my estimation was a fizzle. I heard more noise and shooting in that wild west picture they showed the same night. It was really a beautiful sight to see though, especially the enormous cloud after the explosion. It looked like a giant dish of peach ice-cream (the cloud of smoke) sitting on the horizon. (And speaking of ice-cream I shure wish I had some of it out here now. There seems to be aan acute shortage of it out here). There was a lot of light generated by that darn thing too. They made us stand facing the other way and bury our eyes in the back of our arms but you can still see the light. So now we are back in the lagoon again making preparations for the next big? Bang. The water around here is still radio-active so they say there won’t be any swimming until it clears up. Also a message came through to the effect that there will be no fishing.
He lived to be 84, even with the "look the other way and bury your head in your sleeve" method of nuclear bomb protection.
20
Posted on 7/17/18 at 1:50 pm to BRIllini07
That's pretty cool. If they were from today's generation they would have just watched each other masturbate on web cam and you wouldn't have any of that.
Posted on 7/17/18 at 1:51 pm to BRIllini07
I got goosebumps reading that. 
Posted on 7/17/18 at 1:54 pm to BRIllini07
thats awesome!
quote:not everyone is that lucky. Radiation poisoning is grotesque. Read about what the Japs did to the guy from the recent nuclear meltdown. Sick fricks.
He lived to be 84, even with the "look the other way and bury your head in your sleeve" method of nuclear bomb protection.
This post was edited on 7/17/18 at 1:55 pm
Posted on 7/17/18 at 1:55 pm to BRIllini07
That dude needs sensitivity training
Posted on 7/17/18 at 1:56 pm to BRIllini07
Posted on 7/17/18 at 2:10 pm to slackster
Had to transcribe it and send it to my family so figured I'd throw it on here as well. Left off the last few paragraphs which were full of a bunch of "I miss you so much" type stuff that was a lot less stoic and more touchy feely than the man we remember was. Of course, he was 19 here and in his late 50's at my earliest memories of him.
Posted on 7/17/18 at 2:12 pm to CarRamrod
quote:
Read about what the Japs did to the guy from the recent nuclear meltdown.
link me bro
Posted on 7/17/18 at 2:18 pm to Ed Osteen
Posted on 7/17/18 at 2:25 pm to CarRamrod
quote:
unbelievablefacts.com NSF the weak stomached
Sooooo.. a large amount of gamma radiation won't turn you into the Hulk...good to know
Posted on 7/17/18 at 2:40 pm to CarRamrod
Posted on 7/17/18 at 2:51 pm to CarRamrod
Oh frick that. There's also a famous criticality accident that happened at Los Alamos.
LINK
LINK
quote:
During an experiment on August 21, 1945, Daghlian was attempting to build a neutron reflector manually by stacking a set of 4.4-kilogram (9.7 lb) tungsten carbide bricks in an incremental fashion around a plutonium core. The purpose of the neutron reflector was to reduce the mass required for the plutonium core to attain criticality. He was moving the final brick over the assembly, but neutron counters alerted Daghlian to the fact that the addition of that brick would render the system supercritical. As he withdrew his hand, he inadvertently dropped the brick onto the center of the assembly. Since the assembly was nearly in the critical state, the accidental addition of that brick caused the reaction to go immediately into the prompt critical region of neutronic behavior. This resulted in a criticality accident.[5]
Daghlian reacted immediately after dropping the brick and attempted to knock the brick off the assembly without success. He was forced to disassemble part of the tungsten-carbide pile in order to halt the reaction.[6]
Daghlian was estimated to have received a dose of 510 rem (5.1 Sv) of neutron radiation, from a yield of 1016 fissions.[5] Despite intensive medical care, he developed symptoms of severe radiation poisoning and his mother and sister were flown out to care for him (his father had died in 1943).[2] He fell into a coma, and died 25 days after the accident.[6] He was the first known fatality caused by a criticality accident. His body was returned to New London, where he was buried in Cedar Grove Cemetery.[7]
Posted on 7/17/18 at 2:51 pm to CarRamrod
Holy F..
The doctors didn't care about his life. He became an experiment. They weren't going to let an opportunity to go to waste.
The doctors didn't care about his life. He became an experiment. They weren't going to let an opportunity to go to waste.
Posted on 7/17/18 at 3:03 pm to Enadious
quote:
The doctors didn't care about his life. He became an experiment. They weren't going to let an opportunity to go to waste.
They hopefully learned valuable information though. Life sucks sometimes, but if they were able to learn something then the ends can justify the means.
Science is not pretty many times, but where would we be without it.
Posted on 7/17/18 at 3:15 pm to BRIllini07
Either turn those letters into an heirloom or turn it over to an archive for posterity.
That shits dope yo.
That shits dope yo.
Posted on 7/17/18 at 3:30 pm to BRIllini07
quote:
I hold it up and show my buddies
Like we ain't scared
And our boots ain't muddy
And they all laugh
'Cause she calls me honey,
But they take it hard
'Cause I don't read the good parts
Posted on 7/17/18 at 3:31 pm to BRIllini07
Pics of the pic he was talking about?
Posted on 7/17/18 at 3:54 pm to ZappBrannigan
quote:
Either turn those letters into an heirloom or turn it over to an archive for posterity. That shits dope yo.
I want to turn it over to an archive. Unless for some reason my neice starts to take a massive interest in history, I'm the last one in the blood line who both knew him and cares about this sort've thing.
I have the one with a few paragraphs describing the Baker test as well.
Posted on 7/17/18 at 3:59 pm to BRIllini07
quote:
Also a message came through to the effect that there will be no fishing.
Would have been funny if he had spelt it "fishin'".
Posted on 7/17/18 at 4:14 pm to CarRamrod
That was a wild read
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