Larry Barber
from
Countdown Zero
[In 1957, Orville Kelly was commander of thirteen volunteers from the Army, Air Force, and Navy on Japtan Island during U.S. hydrogen bomb tests in a remote area of the Pacific Ocean. Mr. Kelly died before he could write his section. I took over his part of the project.]
During the next sixteen weeks, Kelly and his men walked to the lagoon shore twenty-one more times to witness Armageddon. They endured the penetrating light that for one long moment was all that existed, felt the searing heat, heard the long, rolling thunder, steadied themselves on the trembling island, braced themselves for the shock waves and winds. They were awed by the ascending fireball of colors and flames, experienced the dwarfing scale of the blasts and their own feelings of insignificance. They knew penetrating horror but never sensed the radiation. They witnessed Butternut, and Koa, and Wahoo, and Holly, and Yellowwood, and Magnolia, and Tobacco, and Rose, and Umbrella, and Walnut. The men went to the dark shores of Japtan and saw the rising suns of Linden, and Elder, and Oak, and Sequoia, and Dogwood, and Scaevola, and Pisonia, and Olive, and Pine, and Quince, and Fig. The men watched a nuclear blast about every three days. Once there were two shots in a day. The longest period of respite from the bombs was eight days. On an average, the men were six miles from the explosions.
By the sixth week of testing, the men of Japtan were showing signs of stress from both their previous isolation and the effects of the continuous nuclear blasts. Whatever margin of control Kelly had over the men eroded until they were only a loosely bound group sharing an island. They seemed to have only the bombs in common. Only the bombs brought them together.