Experimental Irradiation of Air Force Personnel During Operation Redwing --1956

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This report is based upon official documents on various aspects of the U.S. nuclear testing program. The document central to this report is the formerly secret report, now declassifed with deletions, on the experimental irradiation of personnel and aircraft by penetration of the radioactive clouds resulting from nuclear weapons’ explosions entitled Early Cloud This :eport would not have been goss ib lari th out the insight intimate knowledge with the subject of nuclear t.e sting and =elated natt ers has Led biin to disc z ver and :a re cz gn ize the significance of nany documents and facts, among :hem :3e document would also Like to :bank E. Cooper 3rown, and the Yational Committee € or2adi ation Victim which made tSe is sources ? id he rasu al letter ? er fec t ty?inq on short notice.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Summary and Conclusions ............................... 1 2 . Oescription of the Experiment ......................... 5 3 . External Radiation Doses .............................. i o

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Summary and Conclusions . Maximum dose rates as high as 800 r / h t were encounteredl and several flights yielded total radiation doses to Crew of 15 r(oe ntgen s1, as measured by film badges, and 3 5 r(ocntgens1 t o 40 r(0ent g cns)I a s measured by instrumentation more sensitive to lowEarly Cloud Penetrations Armed Forces Special Weapons Project During Operation Redwing, a series of 17 nuclear weapons' ~ z s kForce Seven conducted an experiment in whict Air Force ? ers on nel and airc - aft were deliberately and repeatedly flown o f Znerqy i n its communication wits the Souse Sukcommit:ee on of :.'lis ex?eriment vas to subject2ers on nel and z l : craft to radiation 20 obtain information which would enable the Air Tgrce to plan operations in and near nushroom clouds ir. case of nuclear The operation vas undertaken with the full izowledqe that i: doses of : a did tion. As long ago as Hay 1945,the chief scientist

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in them at times a few minutes after the detonation.. A report on Operation Greenhouse said that while some penetrations may be lethal, some pilots may be able to return to base since .the effects of radiation are frequently sufficiently delayed to permit such an Operation even though the crew were eventually The penetrations of the mushroom clouds were delayed by a few minutes (to a minimum of 20 minutes after the detonation) to avoid immediate radiation sickness. Fligh levels of radiation up to 800 roentgens per hour were encountered by the aircrews. Most of the crew members received well over the maximum permissable radiation level of 3.9 roentgens set for personnel €OK Operation Redwing. In anticipation of this, a different standard was adopted f o r the aircrews. They were permitted to receive 3.9 roentqen during a single flight and 20 roentgen during the entire operation. These limits were also exceeded. The maximum recorded dose to a crew member was 40 roentgen. Anywhere from 2 6 to over LOO Gersonnel were involved i n the early cloud ?enetrations which involved experiments as well 3s cloud One of the most significant aspects of the official preliminary report of the human experiment is that i t admits that f i h badge readi3as of radiation doses were Loo '_ow by a factor of ~ ' J Oand a half. Thus, when the film badges measured radiation levels o f 1 5 roentgen to the crew, more sensitive instruments measured 35-40 roentgen. This fact has, howev*r, been entirely omitted S y the Defense Nuclear Aqency i n its official assessment

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in 1982 o f the radiation doses at Operation Redwing., ma team that prepared the1982 report was familiar with the special report on the early penetration experiment which stated € latly that film badges were only "minimally responsive " to low-energy radiation.Yet it chose to ignore,perhaps even suppress this fact. The claims of the Defense Nuclear Agency (and through it, those of the Veterans Administration)that film badges are the best ava lable source of external radiation estimates is not correct.This claim has Seen shown to be technically un ten abl n by the fn ding of its predecessor agency, the Armed Forces rncord radiation ex?osur%s in atleast some circumstances.if the same correction factor of 2.5 is apo lind to all the jer son nel rxei ~ p ddoses excaeding :he naximum per miss able of 3.9 :aentqen The3ef ense Nuclear Agency also dees not deal with :he hiqh likelihood that the .many crews uhich decontaminated the ki gh ly wore no res piz at or s as they nosed down :.ie aircraft wit. " . high in ail n llar ? os it ion of cleaning up deliberately contaminaced shi2s zy hos in q and ic:ubbing. This cte a ted as it - ation in .xnich w ni chiara do not axis t :or the calcvJlation of irittrna!, doses.

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generally insignificant during the atmospher ic testing program. rt docs not even discuss them i n its Operation Redwing report. The evidence here supports the general conclusion that the personnel were probably subjected to substantially higher doses of external and, i n many cases, internal radiation than the Defense Nuclear Agency has admitted. It also suggests that the Defense Nuclear Agency has at best due t o incompetence,or a t worst deliberately,kept information regarding the inadequacy o f film badge data from the veterans,their families, and the public

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Description of t h e Experiment Operation Redwing consisted of a series of 17 explosions of tbermonuchar weapons (hydrogen bombs) at the Pacific atolls of Bikini and Enewetak i n 1356.. The purpose of the series was t o test the effects of a variety of hydrogen bomb designs for the carried out in conjunction with each of the L7 detonations. “ ese 2xgeriments neas u red the yield and efficiency of the devices and attempted to gauge the sil it ary affects of the explosions.n2 .4r; apart of this ex per inen tal srogram, the Commander of Joint Task Force Seven, who xas responsible for OF e ration Xedwing, conducted an ex per in ent in which Air 7orce ?e?sonnel flew 3-573 and P-84 ?lanes through the in tinsel y - +- * dio active inushroorn clouds that resulted ::om the the rno nuclear A number of “technical experiments were ?he yr?ose of this sx peri ment vas to secure in for nation :.Lei= planning to in sure the sost effective at i liz ation, can s is tent with crew safi ty, of aircraft in :loud areas.n3(AS Cloud Je net rations. “ -. Sis wou1d jr ovid n detailed Cata on rz di ation doses in rza io act l7e clouds :

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“The objective of this project (2.66) was t o measure the radiation dose and dose rate one would experience in flying through the cloud resulting from a megaton-range weapon and some factors affecting personnel safety in the event of an operational situation requiring flights through such clouds .“4 A large amount of specific data was sought. As part of this program, 27 penetrations of radioactive mushroom clouds were made CHEROKEE, ZUNI, FLATREAD, DAKOTA, APACHE, and NAVAJO. (Other planes also penetrated the mushroom clouds of several tests,as parts of other projects.)Five 8-578 planes were used. The mushroom clouds were penetrated at times varying between 20 and 78minutes after the explosions. The data obtained were “on the radiation dose rates inside the cloud, the total dose received in flying through the cloud, and the conditions of flight inside the inside the radioactive cloud : i.e.,turbulence and icing. “ 6 Another ? art of this experiment consisted of flying F-84 and/or 5-57 aircraft through the mushroom clouds in order “ t o 2s tabl ish the radiation levels on various sections of planes and assess the protection to the air crew afforded by wearing different types of gloves. ” These aircraft entered the radioactive clouds at times varying from 24to40ii nute s after the explosion.In addition to the five 5-578 aircraft, one P-84 appears to have been used. Each aircraft involved in the Early Cloud Penetration experiment was equipped with several specifically designed Ln strum ents. T5e instruments were designed to measure radiation

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time at flight through the radioactive clouds, etc.. &Sincet here were only six aircraft involved, each one was used several times. Some aircraft made more than one run through a particular The official report issued by the Defense Uuclear Agency on Operation Redwing as part of its Nuclear Test Personnel Review series ha5identified only twelve people who were the crews o f the six aircraft involved.* important to notc that these twelve men were involved in several early je net rations of highly radioactive clouds. If this is correct,then it is While the Early Cloud Penetration experiment vasa see ci fic ,s ro j ect,with a designated project number, designed ta experimentally irradiate the men and aircraft, t!?ece was alsoa sroqram of collecting samples of the radioactive particles in other 3-37 and six other F44G aircraft. ?resumably this sr ogram gave Lie Joint Task ?orce Seven and the Atomic Energy Commission htaen :he characteristics and efficiency of the explosion.(A 31sc conducted.1 The mushroom cloud sampling sroqram involved a::er :.'.e bombs were detonated. Fle do not know the number of ?eagle involved in this groqram.

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was higher because of multiple penetrations by some.a ir craft during a single flight. The largest number of aircraft involved in a single test was 16, according to the Defense Nuclear Agency. This was during shot ZUEII,a three-and-a-half megaton explosion over Bikini on May 28, 1956. Ten of these were E-57's and s i x were P-84's. The B-57's normally had a crew of two, and t h e F-04's a crew of one.Thus,atleast 26 personnel were involved in the cloud sampling. According t o Langdon Harrison, who was present at Operation Redwing, and was a crew member on many cloud sampling flights, over 100personnel may have been involved in the sampling program alone.

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Number of Aircraft Involved in Early Radioactive Cloud Penetrations During Operation Redwing Experiment, Project2.66 Samglinq Program S o u r c s : Operation Zedwing - 1 9 5 6 , Defense Nucloar Aqency, Aepoct :est were an Znewetak. jar : ici ? a eing aircraft are nor shown in :he list in :he

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External Radiation Doses maximum radiation dose rates as high as 800 rhr. were encountered, and s eve zal flights yielded total radiation doses to crew of 15 r , as measured by film badges, and 35 t o 40 t as measured by if at rumen t ation more sensitive to low-energy radiation. AirForce personnel were sent into the radioactive mushroom clouds with the full knowledge that it was dangerous and could result in heavy radiation doses. As early as May 11, 1945, more than2 months before the first atomic explosion near Alamogordo inNew Mexico, J. Robert Oppenheimer, who headed the scientific team that designed that first atomic bomb, had warned against it. In his prediction of the effects of the first atomic bomb h e warned that “ (a)ir craft must maintain a minimum distance from the detonation in order t o avoid radiation.... ?allowing aircraft must avoid coming close to the could of(radio)active material, and monitoring to determine the extent and disposition of the (radio)activity will be necessary if aircraft are to enter the area within hours of the primary detonation, In Operation Redwing, aircraft entered the radioactive cloud as early as 20 minutes after the detonations. I n atomic bomb tests after the World War XI, drone aircraft were used t o measure radiation levels inside the radioactive clouds. 3rones wer2 sent int3 the clouds of the three atomic explosions of Operation Sandstone, at Bikini atoll in1948. These drones measured radiation levels of up to1,000roentgens ? e r minute a t times about7 minutes after the detonation. l2 report of the subject concluded that radiation in radioactive

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clouds ‘would be sufficiently high as to provide Co nAder able hazard and therefore such contact should be avoided (by personnel). If the mushroom head of the cloud is penetrated the external radiation would frequently be ... lethal. -13 a l s o speculated on the question as to whether the crew of a manned flight uould be too sick to return to base : However, such a return(to base) does not appear t o be ruled out. For the effects of radiation exposure are frequently sufficiently delayed to permit such an opera tip a even though the crew were eventually Subsequent drone genet rations of nushroom clouds during @ e ration Greenhouse in 1951, cm fi z med the high love ls of radiation and danger of entry.Yet, the first mamed genet zat ions were conducred during Operation Teapot is 1955. 15 i7e have not studied tke manned ? e net rations durin q Cpe racion The manned penetrations during Operation Redwing were i.mediate symutoms, and t o allow return to Sase. :hey were, ser son nel of Operation g edwin q. Pncounzered high radiation levels 3n nost flights. The ric z c led