Eniwetok

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Eniwetok
Map of the atoll
Waters	Pacific Ocean
archipelago	Marshall Islands
Geographical location	11 ° 30 '  N , 162 ° 14'  E Coordinates: 11 ° 30 '  N , 162 ° 14'  E
Number of islands	> 40
Main island	Eniwetok
length	37 km
Land area	5.85 km²
Lagoon area	1 004.89  km²
Residents	664 (2011)

Eniwetok is an atoll in the Pacific Ocean that is part of the Marshall Islands . It consists of more than 40 small islands and is located around 525 km northwest of Kwajalein , around 1020 km southwest of Wake and around 4400 km southwest of Honolulu . Eniwetok was the site of numerous atomic bomb tests by the United States after the end of World War II . Between 1977 and 1980, a nuclear waste storage facility was built on Runit Island . LORAN radio beacons were installed on Kwajalein and Eniwetok .

The land mass of all the islands belonging to it covers 5.85 km². The enclosed lagoon is 1004.89 km² and has a diameter of about 37 km. Around 1000 people used to live on the islands. The largest islands are Eniwetok ( 11 ° 20 ′ 33 ″  N , 162 ° 19 ′ 50 ″  E ) , Engebi (also called Arthur, 11 ° 39 ′ 47 ″  N , 162 ° 14 ′ 22 ″  E ), Parry ( 11 ° 24 '4 "  N , 162 ° 22' 14"  O ) , MutY ( 11 ° 25 '28 "  N , 162 ° 22' 59"  O ) and Igurin ( 11 ° 21 '  N , 162 ° 14'  O ) .

Pacific War

Conquered by the USA in 1944

During the Pacific War , the Japanese built a military airfield on Eniwetok in November 1942 in order to be able to control the Caroline and Marshall Islands from here . On February 19, 1944, the Americans captured the island in Operation Catchpole . The entire atoll was under their control on February 23rd. On Eniwetok, 34 American soldiers lost their lives, 94 were wounded and three are still missing . On the side of the Japanese army , 700 soldiers fell and 25 were taken prisoner by the Americans. After the takeover by the Americans, the existing runway was expanded and extended to over 2000 m. The name was Eniwetok Auxiliary Airfield.

Nuclear weapons tests

Play media file

Video of three nuclear weapons tests

After the end of World War II , the islands were part of the Pacific Islands Trust Territory . In addition, the UN decided that the use of areas of the Marshall Islands for the security needs of the US is not subject to any restrictions. The islands were selected by the US as a nuclear test area. The residents were evacuated before the experiments began. Eniwetok was particularly badly affected on October 31, 1952, when the USA carried out the Ivy Mike experiment there with an explosive force of 10 megatons; the island of Elugelab disappeared completely as a result of this explosion. Another 43 nuclear weapon explosions followed, so that the remaining islands were heavily radioactive . Around 11,000 US technicians, scientists and military personnel were stationed on Eniwetok during the atomic bomb tests. In order to investigate the explosion clouds of the bomb tests, some rockets (mostly from Rockoons ) were launched in 1957/58 .

Overview of the most important tests

Operation Sandstone

Sandstone Event X-Ray Detonation on April 14, 1948

attempt	date	place	Explosive power
X ray	April 14, 1948 ( GMT ) 18:17	Engebi Island	37 kT
Yoke	April 30, 1948 (GMT) 6:09 pm	Aomon island	49 kT
zebra	May 14, 1948 (GMT) 6:04 pm	Runit Island	18 kT

Operation Greenhouse

Greenhouse George 20 ms after ignition

attempt	date	place	Explosive power
Dog	April 7, 1951 (GMT) 18:34	Runit Island	81 kT
Easy	April 20, 1951 (GMT) 18:26	Enjebi Island	47 kT
George	May 8, 1951 (GMT) 9:30 pm	Eberiru Island	225 kT
Item	May 24, 1951 (GMT) 18:17	Enjebi Island	45.5 kT

Operation ivy

Ivy Mike (Eniwetok Atoll - October 31, 1952)

Ivy King, aerial view of the mushroom cloud

attempt	date	place	Explosive power
Mike	October 31, 1952 (GMT) 19: 14: 59.4	Elugelab Island	10.4 MT
King	November 15, 1952 (GMT) 11:30 pm	Runit Island	500 kT

Operation Redwing

Redwing Seminole shortly after ignition

Redwing Seminole - Fallout

attempt	date	place	Explosive power
lacrosse	May 4, 1956 (GMT) 18:25	Runit Island	40 kT
Yuma	May 27, 1956 (GMT) 19:56	Aomon island	0.19 kT
Erie	May 30, 1956 (GMT) 18:15	Runit Island	14.9 kT
Seminole	June 6, 1956 (GMT) 12:55 AM	Bogon Island	13.7 kT
Blackfoot	June 11, 1956 (GMT) 18:26	Runit Island	8 kT
Kickapoo	June 13, 1956 (GMT) 11:26 pm	Aomon island	1.49 kT
Osage	June 16, 1956 (GMT) 1:14	Runit Island	1.7 kT
Inca	June 21, 1956 (GMT) 21:26	Rujoru island	15.2 kT
Mohawk	July 2, 1956 (GMT) 6:06 pm	Eberiru Island	360 kT
Apache	July 8, 1956 (GMT) 6:06 pm	Ivy Mike Crater	1.85 MT
Huron	July 21, 1956 (GMT) 18:12	in front of Flora Island	250 kT

Operation Hardtack I

Hardtack umbrella, underwater ignition

attempt	date	place	Explosive power
yucca	April 28, 1958 (GMT) 18:15	97 miles NE of Eniwetok Atoll	1.7 kT
Cactus	May 5, 1958 (GMT) 18:15	Runit Island	18 kT
Fir	May 11, 1958 (GMT) 5:50 pm	Eniwetok Atoll	1360 kT
Butternut	May 11, 1958 (GMT) 18:15	Eniwetok Atoll	81 kT
Koa	May 12, 1958 (GMT) 6:30 pm	Eniwetok Atoll	1370 kT
Wahoo	May 16, 1958 (GMT) 01:30	Eniwetok Atoll	9 kT
Holly	May 20, 1958 (GMT) 6:30 p.m.	Eniwetok Atoll	5.9 kT
Yellowwood	May 26, 1958 (GMT) 02:00	Eniwetok lagoon	330 kT
Magnolia	May 26, 1958 (GMT) 18:00	Eniwetok Atoll	57 kT
Tobacco	May 30, 1958 (GMT) 2:50 am	Eniwetok Atoll	11.6 kT
rose	June 2, 1958 (GMT) 6:45 pm	Eniwetok Atoll	15 kT
Umbrella	June 8, 1958 (GMT) 11:15 pm	Eniwetok lagoon	8 kT
Walnut	June 14, 1958 (GMT) 6:30 p.m.	Eniwetok Atoll	1.45 kT
Linden trees	June 18, 1958 (GMT) 3:00 am	Eniwetok Atoll	11 kT
Elder	June 27, 1958 (GMT) 6:30 p.m.	Eniwetok Atoll	880 kT
Oak	June 28, 1958 (GMT) 7:30 p.m.	Eniwetok lagoon	8.9 MT
Sequoia	July 1, 1958 (GMT) 6:30 p.m.	Eniwetok Atoll	5.2 kT
Dogwood	July 5, 1958 (GMT) 6:30 p.m.	Eniwetok Atoll	397 kT
Scaevola	July 14, 1958 (GMT) 4:00	Eniwetok Atoll	0 kT
Pisonia	July 17, 1958 (GMT) 23:00	Eniwetok Atoll	255 kT
olive	July 22, 1958 (GMT) 18:15	Eniwetok Atoll	202 kT
Pine	July 26, 1958 (GMT) 8:30 pm	Eniwetok Atoll	2000 kT
Quince	August 6, 1958 (GMT) 02:15	Eniwetok Atoll	0 kT
Fig	August 18, 1958 (GMT) 4:00 am	Eniwetok Atoll	0.02 kT

Eniwetok today

In the years 1977 to 1980, three islands were cleaned of the leftover nuclear waste . The contaminated earth was removed over a large area and mixed with Portland cement together with the collected garbage and then poured into an explosion crater. The crater was formed on May 5, 1958 during the Cactus explosion on Runit Island . The diameter of the crater is 107 meters, the depth 9 meters. The crater was then sealed with 358 concrete slabs, each 46 cm thick, at a cost of 239 million US dollars. To this day, ionizing radiation can still be measured, which is mainly caused by plutonium . Runit is a restricted zone and because of the long lifespan of the radioactive fission products ( half-lives of up to 24,000 years), it will have to remain uninhabited on a human basis. The southern and western islands were declared habitable by the US and people were allowed to return there.

A US-funded agriculture program aimed to reintroduce traditional crops, but was unsuccessful. In the case of the three cleaned islands, the removal of the soil left only a few centimeters of fertile soil, which is too sparse for arable farming. Residents rely on US Trust Fund payments to compensate for the nuclear tests, but the amounts transferred are now shrinking.

In 2013, as part of the Marshall Islands Dose Assessment & Radioecology Program, a comprehensive report was produced on the concrete lid covering the explosion crater with nuclear waste. In addition to meticulously documenting every single concrete slab segment with a photo, this report shows some clues that indicate problems with this type of storage.

Names and code names

Alternative names that can be found on cards are:

• Arthur Island
• Brown group
• Brown Islands
• Brown's Range
• Enüwetok
• Enyvetok
• Parry Island

Code names of the US Navy during the Pacific War, or the nuclear test period:

• Say hello to the whole of Eniwetok Atoll
• Downside for Eniwetok
• Fragile for the Engebi Island
• Heartstrings for Parry Island
• Outgeneral for Engebi Island
• Overbuild for Parry Island
• Privilege for Eniwetok

See also

• Bikini Atoll - Analog Nuclear Weapons Test Series
• Atomic bomb | Fallout | Radiation sickness

Web links

Commons : Eniwetok  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kenneth W. Ford: Building the H Bomb - A Personal History. Singapore: World Scientific 2015, ISBN 978-981-4632-07-2 , page 177
2. ↑ Eniwetok in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)
3. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from May 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Jan Hendrik Hinzel, Coleen Jose and Kim Wall: America's Forgotten Nuclear Waste Storage . sueddeutsche.de, November 28, 2015, accessed on November 28, 2015 . 
5. ^ Website of the Marshall Islands Dose Assessment & Radioecology Program. Retrieved May 22, 2019 . 
6. ↑ Terry F. Hamilton: A Visual Description of the Concrete Exterior of the Cactus Crater Containment Structure. In: Marshall Islands Dose Assessment & Radioecology Program. Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, January 1, 2013, accessed May 22, 2019 .