What happened at the Bikini Atoll in 1946?

What happened at the Bikini Atoll in 1946?

Operation Crossroads Able was detonated over Bikini on July 1, 1946 and exploded at an altitude of 520 ft (160 m), but was dropped by aircraft about 1,500 to 2,000 ft (460 to 610 m) off target. It sank only five of the ships in the lagoon.

Why were the Bikini Atoll tests so significant?

The first atomic bomb to be detonated in Operation Crossroads was code-named Able, and it was a plutonium bomb that exploded in the air over 80 unmanned target vessels in the Bikini Atoll lagoon on July 1, 1946. Able was part of a series of nuclear tests conducted that summer.

Where in the South Pacific did the US do nuclear bomb tests in 1946?

Bikini Atoll
Between 1946 and 1958, the United States conducted 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands. The U.S. conducted 23 of these tests at Bikini Atoll, and 44 near Enewetak Atoll, but fallout spread throughout the Marshall Islands.

When were the nuclear tests being conducted over Bikini Atoll?

1 July 1946
On 1 July 1946, the United States conducted the first nuclear test after World War II. The explosion took place at the Bikini Atoll lagoon, situated in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

What is the significance of the nuclear test at Bikini Atoll?

Nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll consisted of the detonation of 23 nuclear weapons by the United States between 1946 and 1958 on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Tests occurred at 7 test sites on the reef itself, on the sea, in the air, and underwater. The test weapons produced a combined fission yield of 42.2 Mt of TNT in explosive power.

What was the date of the bikini a bomb test?

Bikini A-Bomb Tests July 1946. Washington, D.C., July 22, 2016 – U.S. atomic tests in Bikini Atoll in July 1946 staged by a joint Army-Navy task force were the first atomic explosions since the bombings of Japan a year earlier.

How many nuclear tests did the United States have in 1946?

Two tested and one cancelled. Operation Crossroads was a pair of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. They were the first nuclear weapon tests since Trinity in July 1945, and the first detonations of nuclear devices since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.

1 July 1946 – ‘Test Able’, Bikini Atoll. The explosion of the fission bomb, largely identical to the weapon used in the attack on Nagasaki on 9 August 1945, occurred 158 metres above sea level and had a yield of 23 kilotons. The main aim was to test the effects of nuclear weapons on ships.