Operation Big Shot (1952, sound)

foreign due to the east rise up to about 6 500 feet over the north the highest peak ranges rise to about 8 600 feet at the highest point they tapered down to the Northwest at approximately 7 500 feet and then in a slower and more evenly declined regions through the fire of West and down around the South the actual bomb run will possibly be made from the north to the South although we do not know that definitely at the moment the planes in just a few moments will make their second run over this area they already have made one pass we trust that when they come flying at their great altitude you will notice their Vapor Trails the lead plane is a b50 and uh I guess we'll drop the bomb the three planes behind it are also b-50s and they carry camera and measuring apparatus of the atomic energy commission and of the Air Force the correspondence here are located from all parts of the country from virtually every state there are Governors from many states and many top officials all of them are located around this newsman's knob as it's called here on the very basin and directly behind us are the major control Stations of the atomic energy commission fire down at the end of the Basin are several Towers which we trusted before this celic acids included we might be able to show you these are the powers that be used for so-called ground drop from the atom bomb is placed in the tower and allowed to come down a shaft-like affair and thereby detonated at exact distances above the ground the days will be an air drop these fires are the bomb we have learned after talking to the atomic energy officials in a series of briefings that have taken the newsman on the press and radio correspondence television correspondence over these areas for about four days and preparing for this great event the bomb will be of the same nominal size the officials say as the bombs used at bikini at Hiroshima and that's Nagasaki however it will be of greater energy proportions which means when you break that down it will dig bomb field the bombs may be the same size but of course weather of various kinds can make the blast increased proportions or decreased proportions if it is a cloudy day the clouds tend to absorb some of the actual sound waves and thereby diminishing the effect upon the ground the blast waves that crash into the ground when they go into the clouds actually only one one millionth percent is then a reverberated back to the ground and therefore the clouds act as a bladder but today it's a brilliantly clear warm and perfect day for any kind of a test here at Nevada for the past three days we were in great apprehension because the days were cloudy we've had rain and we've had wind they do not want wind for such a test they do not want rain they do not want clouds today they have none and it's a magnificent day cameras are grinding all around us with a new rails and are waiting now for the run which approximately should come the next pass over the area may come in approximately 15 or 10 seconds actually the a term is 9 30 Pacific Standard Time and actually now it's around 9 18 and the last report that we had and we will keep receiving reports from Dr galenfell to the atomic energy commission who breaks into advise the viewers here exactly the status of Affairs and when he makes his next report you no doubt we'll hear that the counts off the minutes before the actual drop time the location of the planes and it keeps everyone well uh advised on the status of the weather and all the details that they actually need to know we're glancing off to the left of that moment to see if we could visualize some plans coming over but they have not yet come over the northern range if they're coming from that end and that is the area that we expect they'll come from although they have made passes from both directions in the past they make them in each Direction and at varying altitudes in the original test to gain exactly what they need for a wind and weather conditions this will be a visual drop will have to be a visual with the Bombardier dropping into a Target on the bomb site and the bomb site is at the extreme North Eastern end of yucco flat at this moment it's at the extreme Northeastern end and to us here it looks like some sort of a makeshift Runway the target there's an approximate 700 foot Affair but has circled in of black and white rings so if the Obama deer will have a perfect Target to fire into and therefore he must make all of his compilations and then drop the bomb in visual contact the troops have gone into the forward areas and have been there for some time they're approximately a thousand troops that will be used and also a very interesting Spotlight is that as soon as the bomb has been dropped there are four uh c-46 planes located uh far back of the uh southern end of the range and it is upon these Flames as paratroopers will Embark to then take a flight over the area and drop in as the secondary movement the first movement will be the Army Ground Forces they'll move out of box holes one and a half to five feet deep and move into the area and the secondary crowd will be the paratroopers who will then go over it this will test the actual effects all the viewers here and this is the closest by the way that any uh information media viewers have ever been allowed there have been of course scientific viewers closer than we but we are the closest of all of the press to the outside uh so-called non-cleared uh members who are not on the scientific field all have been given special dark glasses very black glasses indeed if we put them on now and look at the sun it looks uh something like the moon shining at the height of midnight these are the glasses which we must wear at approximately the time the bomb is dropping for about three seconds afterwards because of the immediate flash it is so bright nothing is seen at all and it can definitely harming a hinder of eyesight to the naked eye what you may see when this bomb flash goes off we don't know if it may be so bright as to burn out a camera too but maybe so brightest would just be a momentary Flash when they found wave strike actually it may disrupt our signal we are thermizing but you will see a quick Flash and then quickly develop into a round Fireball and then into the varying colors and we will describe the colors for you we will assume that you can see the proportions of this uh cloud and Flash will take therefore will merely fill you in on the colors the Press crew here come from varying distances and it worked very hard we have gone through as we said before about four days of briefings we've been over this entire site we've been through places and no other Outsiders have ever viewed and have found it all extremely informative and interesting and actually not too technical support at first time doubled your cooperation will help you right at that moment when we pause Dr Galen felt was announcing so they press assemble here about the goggles and to prepare to put them on in just a few moments the h-time now is approximately eight minutes away and that was the announcement made to advise the press to at least have the goggles handy if you don't have the black goggles of course you must turn away from the actual blast because as we said before the first immediate flash is uh of such a nature that we're definitely injure of the eyes right now while everything has been set up previously up to this particular moment on clock-like efficiency with the Machinery handling everything now as we understand that the actual time of the drop is in the hands of the Bombardier if they make a path over the area and decide that they do not want to drop the bomb so your playing van will turn about and make a run a second fast which will take an approximately 20 minutes and for each ensuing fast there may be 20 more minutes all is for mice however that they will drop the bomb on the first round the plane of the b50 as we said and it comes from Kirkland Airfield at Albuquerque New Mexico the troops that are in this area and the Air Force the paratroopers are taken from areas all over the United States the Air Force supporting group comes from Clovis field in New Mexico the Army troops come from uh Indiana they come from Alabama from Colorado and during other states and we probably will give you those units right after the bomb drops the doctor felt that just announcing to the audience here now to the Press Representatives the information that we gave you previously about the bomb run at approximately 3 500 feet or even between 32 and 3 500 seats when actually it drops the bomb and it will drop the bomb into a Target as he said some 10 miles away we expect here to receive these Shockwave approximately uh 45 seconds after the Flash if we happen so Dr Phil is announcing more of the plane positions and we'll now wait here for the actual appearance of the Flames while awaiting uh one point as we do see now is there they all come actually coming now going uh from actually Southwest to Northeast and here uh Grant you want to come in Grant Holcomb has been standing by one of our other microphone to the top of this mountain peak here for a moment Brad do you want to put in a few very important words because in just a moment the hour will be here well thank you Fred I just got out to the top of this mountain I don't know what you've been talking about for the last few moments but uh uh it was announced that uh the plane that will drop the bomb is at 36 000 feet I don't know whether when the bomb will drop and we give you a bombs away we'll count off approximately 20 seconds after the bombs away and then there's going to be this tremendous blinding flash that will in all probability whiten up the television screen a lot of us here have extremely dark glasses 0.4 approximately three seconds after the blinding Splash and that as I said will certainly whiten up your television screen but those of you at home will certainly not have to put on dark glasses or anything at all because there are certainly no danger of of slight radiation uh blindness which is a momentary thing but it gets to be a very uncomfortable thing because you have not only the the radiation aspect but the but the tremendous Heat just a minute you'll hear the bombs away then the blinding Flash followed by a cloud foreign interesting point as a nice cap we'll form on top of this Cloud as it goes blowing up uh Higher and Higher and it came as you saw as a great flash was about 10 parallel white almost vapor trails along the horizontal on its left side and then exploded into uh not the flashy or red brilliant red that we had been led to believe but it just seemed to hover there for a moment and then it went up and now it is pouring into the uh like a donut completely unfalling us off a huge uh pump on a pipe almost and the red and the brown is now fumbling under as light small comes down from the top and they dust across this entire Basin goes up almost like a battleship it looks very much like there's a battleship in this Basin with a huge uh white smoke Trail above it and then this tremendous donut up there that goes higher and higher it's an actually a fabulous sight red just looking away from beautiful mushroom that's turning into that fabulous white now and down to that ugly gray all across the floor of this Valley you can't help but realize that you could put right inside this Proving Ground from where we are the entire island of Manhattan New York City and if you look at that dirty ugly gray base you see what that particular weapon can do and certainly as we've been told here many times during the past few days by Mr Gordon Dean the chairman of the atomic energy Commission General Joseph Mills who was in charge of the airdrop today the enemy certainly has similar weapons beautiful white cloud and a clear blue sky dirty gray bottom The Proving Grounds Brad have you anything you'd like to say I grab just on top if we look here now with some very powerful binoculars and maybe our camera on our way up North Charleston will have this because they're further and higher than the fourth we are and that is that it is a very Sleek uh ice cap right on top as we said there was a a mushroom effect is now changed to a flat top and it's almost like an ice skating rink very smooth and even assuming that I had granted as plain as you mentioned a moment ago about the feeling that we could put all of Manhattan in here in the potency of this bomb actually when you see this go up and feel these uh wave and hear the great explosion and certainly this one was spelled and heard I think we looked with so much humility upon this awesome forces in created by man this has gone higher now tremendous type there's mushrooming out and now there's almost a vapor trail on top of that white campus all the entire top is all white the shaft the middle shaft as I would say uh two-thirds wiped with a little bit of uh yellow uh orangish yellow on one side and then of course the gray at the bottom here has the dust uh goes up into that right now in a few moments we've got I think the radiation uh Advanced group will go off won't they and see when the troops can go into action uh yes Brad uh I I just had the glasses on them and they're moving forward now these uh this is what uh they call uh rad safe uh radiological safety uh these are men who walk through with uh Geico counters and uh similar instruments to detect the amount of radiation in the area from uh the The Fringe of ground zero points are certainly On The Fringe of that now uh the troops are we don't know uh the atomic energy commission the military uh will not say how close they were to where the bomb was dropped but it has been yes and rumored among the correspondence uh here's a day and uh when I say rumor I want to emphasize that that they are between seven and eight miles away from where the bomb was dropped now that is only a rumor it's quite possible that they could be closer this we do know for a fact they are the closest any human beings have ever been in a military maneuver to a bomb drop of course the only person who are horribly and dreadfully closer were those in Japan but these troops are the closest any of our troops have ever been to an atomic bomb drop and now in a little while just to give you a slight picture of the military maneuver it's on the drop will proceed slowly first the rad safety people go ahead detecting the amount of uh radiological material when it is safe for them to advance into the ground zero area where the bomb was dropped they will move forward and then a weather permitting and uh when I say whether in this instance I mean the day's winds paratroopers will take off in four planes and drop in back of the bomb um the idea being for the advancing Ground Forces to join up with the paratroopers in the Ground Zero Zone and take the theoretical objective that was there Brad I just want to break in just a moment we've now moved in previously up to now we've been viewing this from our cameras at Mount Charleston we have now moved into our cameras located right here on the Range itself and our close-up cameras and of course we now be able to get a very close view of exactly what is going to happen where the paratroopers about to depart after the ground zero time is declared safe I think there's one thing that should be mentioned as far as the uh troop operations concerned that they were in one location in their foxholes they they then were to advance into the second area one area immediately ahead of them right now I believe you can see some of the planes going up here there's a c-46 going in an advanced tackling up at the end of this a long uh desert area and that is no doubt meant to go out and make some of the first radiological tests now these planes go out first the uh this is the c-47 up there that is now going at the far end an Army Air Force plane and yet no doubt will make some of these first Cloud samplings after the initial Cloud samplings were made and the ground forces make some of their tests of both the atomic energy commission and the Army Medical Corps then will be determined at what point the area is radiologically safe enough for uh the troops to make their movements the actual operation here with regard to the Troops as ground started to mention and Grant now uh who has been up here on top of this peak where I am located has now gone down this peak and so going down to a lower camera right now you can look at the mushrooming effect which you see has gone higher now the shaft connected between the ground and the actual uh mushroom itself is entirely disintegrated and we have two sections high above spreading out in a great blanket now it has started as a mushroom and then went as a donut all in the white an unfolding donut and now it is they're getting the spread out into an umbrella shape and the dust cloud which had gone up almost in the form of a huge Battleship then with a high uh shaft on top of that now it's beginning to flatten out and there's almost a rectangular Affair there's a great good gap between the lower area here where the dust cloud is and the tire area where the actual uh Atomic blasts the bomb itself the bright orange flame which then turned to Brown on the reddish brown and then into the brilliant White greatest singer strikes us with car here was not the actual color it was the whiteness of the white I can't recall whenever I have seen any white as white as the top mushroom effect when it came onto the ice cap and certainly it was also a very interesting and thrilling note to watch the upper layer of the cloud formation itself and the ice formed now the brilliant and the smoothness of it those are the two things that impressed us the whiteness of this Cloud as it started to go up and then the rules brilliant of the ice formation on top all right now at the far end of the uh Yucca flat here we see some dust formations and those are the army trucks the advanced army trucks are beginning to move from there assemble formation or assemble areas assembly areas and move information up towards some of the front line or regions the actual movement will probably take some time because they will make uh one advance and then have the forward area of course go into checking for radiological counts but this formation now is almost appearing the entire Northern mountain range and as we told you the mountain range of the north of something like 8 000 in fact it is exactly 8605 feet and the dust cloud certainly is five times above that at the moment four times at least and of course the actual uh Bomb Blast itself which is now drifting from the target area it is coming now uh drifting with the wind blowing it to the south over is not exactly over our head it's two hour right to the east and it's coming uh as it continually spreads out not exactly an umbrella formation almost like a huge blanket the Marine planes are beginning to come down here as our far right and assume they will take the troops there reaction here of course was some silent oh while this went off and they reacted now of course uh the reactions were many some here had seen previous blasts of zucchini some like uh William L law Lawrence of the New York Times and we have the privilege to interview on a television program last night of course as a veteran uh Grant Holcomb is now down with another uh camera actually on the lower area we are high so let's switch down to Grant Holcomb and our camera low go ahead grab Holcomb now this is uh Grand Holcomb at the bottom of uh what has become reporters from the news associations from the magazines radio stations television stations in the United States news knob now directly at the sun it doesn't bother me at all it's just uh just a string flight and another thing that I think a few few people might be interested in here it's why their place is called Yucca flat now all of this business that you see around us are yucca trees the place is literally covered with uh covered with yucca trees and uh although it isn't apparent in this uh in this area approximately eight million dollars has been spent underground and in a few visible aspects in and among all of these weird desert trees some of the oldest trees and known to mankind about eight and a half million dollars in this tremendous Proving Ground I think you can probably get a little better view of the entire area and see just what there is here and what there isn't here what there isn't a parent from uh in front of us right now you can see the parked airplanes of the Marine Corps uh there are four of them four c46s uh that will be taking off in just a moment an interesting point on these uh paratroopers it would be soon making their jumps they're two interesting officers on board uh one of them is a lieutenant who's one of the sixth I believe uh jumping tennis and another is uh a chaplain so on board of the uh Marine parachurer whether the Army the paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division who were jumping here uh one of them uh will be a jumping Dennis and the other will be a chaplain right now part of the advanced units that have gone out to test radiological effects and are coming back to to make their uh reports are the truck's coming in right now the radiological truck that's uh the two lead cars have gone through but the trucks actually contain the paratroopers these will be the men of the 82nd Airborne that will come in on these trucks and will come up and uh and black on the planes to make their parachute jumps evidently the area has cleared safe a fire engine is now going along the road to our left and this very often happens and then I'm bombs flash sometimes telephone poles and things along the line catch on fire they are not visible here at all the trucks now are coming down uh behind the park Plains and the paratroopers will soon get out and they're about 120 actually 120 of the members the 82nd Airborne who will make this parachute jump in to this area and try attempting now to put our binoculars on and see what we can determine there are approximately uh eight trucks that have come through an hour filled now these fire Troopers will soon get out a little uh line up in front of the iron now that you can see several of the lines of them as they are now going to the first plane plane number one which is at the extreme uh Southwestern end of this lineup the paratrooper is coming into a position the dust cloud now for the first time we can actually see across the uh Flats where they bomb uh area had been uh the bomb blasted round zero was we can see at the far Edge now of the mountains the very very low I don't know if you can see this at the moment because the dust is still in some areas we can see a very thin pencil line almost of the very face of the mountains more they paratrooper trucks are coming in the whole group is now completely assembled the final truck's coming up so we are awaiting some report on the radiological tests and when the troops can actually Advance into their area the Press crew of course those that have the cameras are we're very very well occupied and the newspaper Men actually are beginning to file their stories down at our lower camera on the basement here at the echo flat I've been standing here with Mr Miller Caldwell uh Federal director of Civilian defense we've been watching the paratroopers load into their planes and getting in preparation for the jump Mr Caldwell as you know is the director of Civilian defense a former governor of Florida and like all of you this morning uh he witnessed in person his first atomic bomb it's called well uh last night you told me that uh the civil defense program hadn't been going very well but sometime around 9 45 Pacific Standard time this morning that you thought there would be a great impetus and surge of uh people wanting to work in civilian defense organizations do you still feel that after watching what we've seen this morning more stronger than I did last last night every every person who saw this on your television show this morning is right now ready to do something about civil defense they're not applies to the people from the top to the bottom the fish of them as well as private businesses well Mrs Colorado what specific Leisure needs in civilian defense at the moment what are your problems a mental approach to this problem is calm realistic and willing to learn to do those things necessary to keep this democracy of hours alive well I think we certainly saw a considerable amount of calmness this morning from uh the troops that we have uh the troops that we had out there close to the blast we had a report from a command post there a few moments ago that there was a considerable amount of dust out there and a much stronger blast wave that we felt but so far that they have reported that no one was injured or in any way damaged the troops were up out of their hole and that certainly is uh demonstration I believe ladies and gentlemen you have for the past 55 minutes watched The Telecast from Yucca Flats out on the Nevada desert I'm sure that you felt the same frustration we hear in the studio did when the picture broke up I'm sure that many of you thought that perhaps your own television sets were out of order that wasn't the case the men of television in the California area had set up and a very Valiant try and as a matter of fact a great deal of it was really thrilling I'm sure that you did see a portion of the atomic explosion and the big cloud afterward anyway that sure the situation was that they had had to set up for a period of 300 miles of portable microwave recorders to push the signal along something just got a little bit Haywire it didn't work as well as it might have but at least it was a first at an actual Coast to Coast television broadcast of the explosion of an atomic bomb you saw a little bit of what went on before the explosion and some of the aftermath too and now here is a special film produced by the civilian defense if by way of a reminder that not only the United States has the atomic bomb but that the civil defense is everybody's business it's a short blast on Horns or on whistles or a three-minute wailing siren Go at once to your shelter area if you are in Europe