Review of Initial Draft of Operation Dominic I

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IDEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS ioIN REPLY REFER TO Sub ] : Review of initial draft of Operation DOMINIC I Encl: (1) Marked-up pages of subject draft (2)Times of Operation DOMINIC I detonations 1. This is a comprehensive and thorough history which will be a significant addition to the program.It does require editing to eliminate grammatical errors and awkward sentence structure in certain sections of the report.Enclosure (1) 2. The first paragraph,page6 of the DOMINICI Fact Sheet which deals with environmental damage to film badges and its effect on assignment of dose to DOMINIC personnel needs t o be revised as shown in enclosure (1). It is important to establish - that in spite of this damage, personnel at DOMINIC were probably assigned doses higher than they actually received ; but the r e Irded exposures will be assigned. 3. The Navy previously provided an input to KAMAN-TEMPO i n - formally on the recommended wording for discussion of en v iron - mental damage to film badges and its impact on DOMINIC dose as sing ment.This was intended to provide most of the data considered necessary to develop the Summary of Personnel ExLand auer on1349DOMINIC badges as well as a JTF8letter of February 1963 provide rational for the use o f the Consolidated listing of dos ime try for DOLINIC over other microfilm records. Chapter 13should be shortened to remove sections that deal in too great a length with issues of opinion rather than fact. Enclosure (1) provides guidance toward this objective. 4. Throughout sections of the report there is a discrepancy in the times for many of the tests. These should appear cons is tent ly as Pacific Proving Ground time. This has been followed ,,’ i n chapter 4(ship position figures) and in chapter 9. All other .’ shot times in chapter 4are incorrect.Enclosure (2) is provided t o assist i n the necessary correction and agreement of shot times for all DOMINIC events. 5. Chapter 2organization should be closely reviewed. There is extensive repetition. Many sections can be condensed or

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6.There is lack of agreement on the number of badged naval personnel and the numbers of personnel in each exposure category between the table in the Fact Sheet (Page 71, Table 9.1 on page 9-11 and Table13.1 on page 13-9. Page 9-5 states that " the Consolidated List badge readings have been used to construct the tables that summarize the exposures. ' ' The Fact Sheet appears to include data shown i n Table 13.2, page 13-10, since the Navy high i s shown as 6.0. The highest badged assigned by the Navy isa medical record dose of 4.15 rem gamma. The Fact Sheet shows that 31 Navy individuals had doses between 3.0 and 5.0 rem, when i n fact only four Navy individuals have been found t o have doses that exceed3.0rem. Tables 9.1 and 13.1 show only one Navy individual over 3.0 rem. It is most important that these three tables be brought into agreement if the reader is not to develop the impression that DOMINIC dos ime try is inconsistent and the report unreliable. The Navy accepts the Consolidated List asthe most accurate record of exposure since no conclusive evidence has been found to indicate otherwise. out that the Report o n Navy Task Group Operations as well as paqe 2 - 17report total Navy s tren q that 5000 more than JTF 8- - exposure records which inc lb de 17,300 personnel in Navy units. Careful research over the last four years by Navy NTPR has identified a13 units who actually participated at DOMINIC and all personnel Associated with these units.To date Navy has identified 17,695 personnel who participated a t DOMINIC I and has retrieved individual film badge data for 16,952 Navy personnel. This is not the picture portrayed by the projected strength levels cited above. Figure 1-16, Page 1-28a, shows approximately 15,000 Navy personnel at Christmas Island period and 7,000 Navy personnel at the later phase at Johnston Island. The difficulty is, however,that there is duplication of Navy individuals between the two periods.Itis,therefore, recommended that the sentence referring to Navy strength levels be omitted since the figure of17,695is an extremely accurate figure for Naval personnel at DOMINIC I. 8.Throughout the volume,change Barbers Point NAS t o NAS