A Short History of the People of Bikini Atoll

[DiverKen]

I just thought I set that before the dive site review!




A Short History of the People of Bikini Atoll

By Jack Niedenthal

Bikini Atoll is one of the 29 atolls and five islands that compose the Marshall Islands. These atolls of the Marshalls are scattered over 357,000 square miles of a lonely part of the world located north of the equator in the Pacific Ocean. They help define a geographic area referred to as Micronesia.

Once the Marshalls were discovered by the outside world, first by the Spanish in the 1600's and then later by the Germans, they were used primarily as a source for producing copra oil from coconuts. The Bikini islanders maintained no substantial contacts with these early visitors because of Bikini Atoll's remote location in the very dry, northern Marshalls. The fertile atolls in the southern Marshalls were attractive to the traders because they could produce a much larger quantity of copra. This isolation created for the Bikinians a well integrated society bound together by close extended family association and tradition, where the amount of land you owned was a measure of your wealth.

In the early 1900's the Japanese began to administer the Marshall Islands. This domination later resulted in a military build up throughout the islands in anticipation of World War II. Bikini and the rest of these peaceful, low lying coral atolls in the Marshalls suddenly became strategic. The Bikini islanders' life of harmony drew to an abrupt close when the Japanese built and maintained a watchtower on their island to guard against an American invasion of the Marshalls. Throughout the conflict the Bikini station served as an outpost for the Japanese headquarters in the Marshall Islands, Kwajalein Atoll.

In February of 1944, toward the end of the war, in a gruesome and terrifying bloody battle, the American forces captured Kwajalein Atoll and thereby effectively crushed the Japanese hold on the Marshall Islands. The five Japanese men left on Bikini, while hiding in a covered foxhole, killed themselves with a grenade before the American military forces could capture them.

After the war, in December of 1945, President Harry S. Truman issued a directive to Army and Navy officials that joint testing of nuclear weapons would be necessary "to determine the effect of atomic bombs on American warships." Bikini, because of its location away from regular air and sea routes, was chosen to be the new nuclear proving ground for the United States government.

In February of 1946 Commodore Ben H. Wyatt, the military governor of the Marshalls, traveled to Bikini. On a Sunday after church, he assembled the Bikinians to ask if they would be willing to leave their atoll temporarily so that the United States could begin testing atomic bombs for "the good of mankind and to end all world wars." King Juda, then the leader of the Bikinian people, stood up after much confused and sorrowful deliberation among his people, and announced, "We will go believing that everything is in the hands of God."

While the 167 Bikinians were getting ready for their exodus, preparations for the U.S. nuclear testing program advanced rapidly. Some 242 naval ships, 156 aircraft, 25,000 radiation recording devices and the Navy's 5,400 experimental rats, goats and pigs soon began to arrive for the tests. Over 42,000 U.S. military and civilian personnel were involved in the testing program at Bikini.

The nuclear legacy of the Bikinians began in March of 1946 when they were first removed from their islands in preparation for Operation Crossroads. The history of the Bikinian people from that day has been a story of their struggle to understand scientific concepts as they relate to their islands, as well as the day-to-day problems of finding food, raising families and maintaining their culture amidst the progression of events, set in motion by the Cold War, that has been for the most part out of their control.

In preparation for Operation Crossroads, the Bikinians were sent 125 miles eastward across the ocean on a U.S. Navy LST landing craft to Rongerik Atoll. The islands of Rongerik Atoll were uninhabited because, traditionally, the Marshallese people considered them to be unlivable due to their size (Rongerik is 1/6 the size of Bikini Atoll) and because they had an inadequate water and food supply. There was also a deep rooted traditional belief that the atoll was inhabited by evil spirits. The Administration left the Bikinians food stores sufficient only for several weeks. The islanders soon discovered that the coconut trees and other local food crops produced very few fruits when compared to the yield of the trees on Bikini. As the food supply on Rongerik quickly ran out, the Bikinians began to suffer from starvation and fish poisoning due to the lack of edible fish in the lagoon. Within two months after their arrival they began to beg U.S. officials to move them back to Bikini.

In July, the Bikinian leader, Juda, traveled with a U.S. government delegation back to Bikini to view the results of the second atom bomb test of Operation Crossroads, code named Baker. Juda returned to Rongerik and told his people that the island was still intact, that the trees were still there, that Bikini looked the same.

The two atomic bomb blasts of Crossroads were both about the size of the nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. Eighteen tons of cinematography equipment and more than half of the worlds supply of motion picture film was on hand to record the movement of the Bikinians from their atoll, and also the Able and Baker detonations.

From December of 1946 through January of 1947, the food shortages worsened on Rongerik; the small population of Bikinians was confronted with near starvation. During the same period of time, the area of Micronesia was designated as a United Nations Strategic Trust Territory (TT) to be administered by the United States. Indeed, it was the only strategic trust ever created by the United Nations. In this agreement, the U.S. committed itself to the United Nations directive to "promote the economic advancement and self-sufficiency of the inhabitants, and to this end shall...protect the inhabitants against the loss of their lands and resources..." The Bikini people have long seen the irony in the conduct of the TT agreement that allowed the bombing of their homeland and that forced them into starvation on Rongerik Atoll.

In May of 1947, to make the Bikinians situation on Rongerik even more serious, a huge fire damaged many of the coconut trees. By July, when a medical officer from the U.S. visited the island, the Bikinian people were found to be suffering severely from malnutrition. A team of U.S. investigators determined in the fall, after a visit to Rongerik, that the island had inadequate supplies of food and water and that the Bikini people should be moved from Rongerik without delay. The U.S. Navy was harshly criticized in the world press for neglecting the Bikini people on Rongerik. Harold Ickes, a reporter, stated in his 1947 syndicated column Man to Man that, "The natives are actually and literally starving to death."

Immediate preparations began for the transfer of the Bikinians to Ujelang Atoll in the western Marshalls. In November a handful of young Bikinian men traveled to Ujelang, and with the help of Navy Seabees, they began to arrange a community area and to construct housing. At the end of the year, however, the U.S. selected Enewetak Atoll as a second nuclear weapons test site. The Navy then decided that it would be easier to move the Enewetak people to Ujelang despite the fact that the Bikinians had built all the housing and held high hopes that they would be relocated there.

In January of 1948, University of Hawaii anthropologist, Dr. Leonard Mason, traveled to Rongerik at the request of the Trust Territory High Commissioner to report on the status of the Bikinians living there. Horrified at the sight of the withering islanders, Mason immediately requested a medical officer along with food supplies to be flown in to Rongerik.

In March of 1948, after two unpleasant years on Rongerik, the Bikinians were transported to Kwajalein Atoll where they were housed in tents on a strip of grass beside the airport. The Bikinians fell into yet another debate among themselves about alternative locations soon after they settled on Kwajalein.

It was in June of 1948 that the Bikinians chose Kili Island in the southern Marshalls because the island was not ruled by a paramount king, or iroij, and was uninhabited. This choice ultimately doomed their traditional diet and lifestyle, both based on lagoon fishing.

In September of 1948, two dozen Bikinian men were chosen from among themselves to accompany 8 Seabees to Kili in order to begin the clearing of land and the construction of a housing area for the rest of the people who remained on Kwajalein.

[continued 2]

In November of 1948, after six months on Kwajalein Atoll, the 184 Bikinians set sail once again. This time the destination was Kili Island, their third community relocation in two years.

Starvation also troubled the Bikinians on Kili; this situation led the Trust Territory administration to donate a 40-foot ship to be used for copra transportation between Kili and Jaluit Atoll. Later, in 1951, the boat was washed into the Kili reef by heavy surf and sunk while carrying a full-load of copra. In the following years rough seas and infrequent visits by the field trip ships caused food supplies to run critically low many times on the island and once even required an airdrop of emergency food rations.

While the islanders struggled to set up their new community on Kili, the beautiful atoll of Bikini was in the process of being irradiated. In the northern Marshalls in January of 1954, the Air Force and Army men arrived on the Bikinians' former, temporary home of Rongerik Atoll, and jointly set up a weather station to monitor conditions in preparation for Operation Castle. This was a series of tests that would include the first air-deliverable, and the largest hydrogen bomb ever detonated by the United States. The U.S. government was operating with the fear that the Russians had already detonated their own hydrogen bomb in 1952. Now, decisions concerning the U.S. testing program were being made at the highest levels of the government. The cold war burned with vigor in the minds of paranoid politicians the world over.

The weather station on Rongerik began regular observations to determine barometric conditions, temperature, and the velocity of the wind up to 100,000 feet above sea level. As the test date for the Bravo shot grew near, the men at the weather station performed many observations per day. They were checking surface wind direction and barometric conditions hourly and upper-level conditions every two hours. As the test date neared, late in the month of February, documented proof exists** that Joint Task Force-7 knew that the winds were blowing east from Bikini toward Rongerik Atoll and other inhabited islands because of the continuous reports coming in from their weather station. The decision to go forward with the test, knowing that the winds were blowing in the direction of inhabited atolls, was essentially a decision to irradiate the atolls of the northern Marshall Islands, and moreover, to irradiate the people who were still living on them.

Early in the morning on March 1, 1954, the hydrogen bomb, code named Bravo, was detonated on the surface of the reef in the northwestern corner of Bikini Atoll. The area was illuminated by a huge and expanding flash of blinding light. A raging fireball of intense heat, that measured into the millions of degrees, shot skyward at a rate of 300 miles an hour. Within minutes the monstrous cloud, filled with nuclear debris, shot up more than 20 miles and generated winds hundreds of miles per hour. These fiery gusts blasted the surrounding islands and stripped the branches and coconuts from the trees.

Joint Task Force ships, which were stationed about 40 miles east and south of Bikini in positions enabling them to monitor the test, detected the eastward movement of the radioactive cloud from the 15 megaton blast. They recorded a steady increase in radiation levels that became so high that all men were ordered below decks and all hatches and watertight doors were sealed.

Millions of tons of sand, coral, plant and sea life from Bikini's reef, from three islands and the surrounding lagoon waters were sent high into the air by the blast. One and a half hours after the explosion, 23 fishermen aboard the Japanese fishing vessel, the Lucky Dragon, watched in awe as a "gritty white ash" began to fall on them. The men aboard the ship were oblivious to the fact that the ash was the fallout from a hydrogen bomb test. Shortly after being exposed to the fallout their skin began to itch and they experienced nausea and vomiting. One man died.

Meanwhile, on Rongelap Atoll (located about 125 miles east of Bikini), three to four hours after the blast, the same white, snow-like ash began to fall from the sky onto the 64 people living there and also on the 18 people residing on Ailinginae Atoll. Bravo was a thousand times more powerful than the Fat Man and Little Boy atomic bombs that were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima during the end of World War II. Its "success" was beyond the wildest dreams of the American scientists who were involved in the detonation - they thought that the blast would only carry a payload of approximately 3 megatons.

The Rongelapese, not understanding what was happening, watched as two suns rose that morning, observed with amazement as the radioactive dust soon formed a layer on their island two inches deep turning the drinking water a brackish yellow.

Children played in the fallout; their mothers watched in horror as night came and they began to show the physical signs of exposure. The people experienced severe vomiting and diarrhea, their hair began to fall out, the island fell into a state of terrified panic. The people had received no explanations or warnings whatsoever from the United States government. Two days after the test the people of Rongelap were finally taken to Kwajalein for medical treatment.

On Bikini Atoll the radiation levels increased dramatically. And, in late March following the Bravo test, the off-limits zones were expanded to include the inhabited atolls of Rongerik, Utirik, Ujelang and Likiep. It is startling to note that none of these islanders were evacuated prior to this blast or even before the subsequent nuclear weapons tests. In the spring of 1954, Bikar, Ailinginae, Rongelap, Rongerik, were all contaminated by the Yankee and Union weapon tests which were detonated on Bikini Atoll. They yielded the equivalent of 6.9 and 13.5 megatons of TNT respectively.

Back on Kili, in January of 1955, the Trust Territory ships continued to have problems unloading food in the rough seas around Kili and the people once again suffered from starvation. The following year the food shortage problems grew even worse. Consequently, the United States decided to give the Bikinians a satellite community located on public land on Jaluit Atoll, thirty miles to the north. Three families moved to Jaluit. During 1957 other families rotated to Jaluit to take over the responsibilities of producing copra for sale.

During this period the Bikinians signed an agreement with the U.S. government turning over full use rights to Bikini Atoll. According to the agreement, any future claims by the Bikinians based on the use of Bikini by the government of the United

States, or on the moving of the Bikinian people from Bikini Atoll to Kili Island, would have to be made against the Bikinian leaders and not against the U.S government. In return for this agreement, the Bikinians were given full use rights to Kili and several islands in Jaluit Atoll which were Trust Territory public lands. In addition, the agreement included $25,000 in cash and an additional $300,000 trust fund which yielded a semi-annual interest payment of approximately $5,000 (about $15 per person a year). This agreement was made by the Bikinians without the benefit of legal representation.

Typhoon Lola struck Kili late in 1957 causing extensive damage to crops and sinking the Bikinians' supply ship. Shortly afterwards in 1958, Typhoon Ophelia caused widespread destruction on Jaluit and all the other southern atolls. The Bikinians living on Jaluit moved back to Kili because the satellite community became uninhabitable due to the typhoon damage. The Bikinians continued to fight the problems associated with inadequate food supplies throughout 1960.

The difficulty of inhabiting Kili is due in part to the small amount of food which can be grown there, but more so because it has no lagoon. Kili differs substantially from Bikini because it is only a single island of one-third of a square mile in land area with no lagoon - compared to the Bikinians' homeland of 23 islands that form a calm lagoon and have a land area of 3.4 square miles. Most of the year Kili is surrounded by 10 to 20 foot waves which deny the islanders of the opportunity to fish and sail their canoes. After a short time on Kili - a place that islanders believe was once an ancient burial ground for kings and therefore overwrought with spiritual influence - they began to refer to it as a "prison" island. Because the island does not produce enough local food for the Bikinians to eat, the importation of USDA rice and canned goods, and also food bought with their supplemental income, has become an absolute necessity for their survival.

In 1967, U.S. government agencies began considering the possibility of returning the Bikinian people to their homelands based on data on radiation levels on Bikini Atoll from the U.S. scientific community. This scientific optimism stemmed directly from an AEC study that stated, "Well water could be used safely by the natives upon their return to Bikini. It appears that radioactivity in the drinking water may be ignored from a radiological safety standpoint...The exposures of radiation that would result from the repatriation of the Bikini people do not offer a significant threat to their health and safety." Accordingly, in June of 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson publicly promised the 540 Bikinians living on Kili and other islands that they would now be able to return to their homeland. The President also stated that, "It is our goal to assist the people of Bikini to build, on these once desolated islands, a new and model community." He then ordered Bikini to be resettled "with all possible dispatch."

[continued 3]

In August of 1969 an eight year plan was prepared for the resettlement of Bikini Atoll in order to give the crops planted on the islands a chance to mature. The first section of the plan involved the clearing of the radioactive debris on Bikini Island. This segment of the work was designed by the AEC and the U.S. Department of Defense. Responsibility for the second phase of the reclamation, which included the replanting of the atoll, construction of a housing development and the relocation of the community, was assumed by the U.S. Trust Territory government.

By late in the year of 1969 the first cleanup phase was completed. The AEC, in an effort to assure the islanders that their cleanup efforts were successful, issued a statement that said: "There's virtually no radiation left and we can find no discernible effect on either plant or animal life."

All that was theoretically left now in order for the people to return was for the atoll to be rehabilitated, but during the year of 1971 this effort proceeded slowly. The second phase of the rehabilitation encountered serious problems because the U.S. government withdrew their military personnel and equipment. They also brought to an end the weekly air service that had been operating between Kwajalein Atoll and Bikini Atoll. The construction and agricultural projects suffered because of the sporadic shipping schedules and the lack of air service.

In late 1972 the planting of the coconut trees was finally completed. During this period it was discovered that as the coconut crabs grew older on Bikini Island they ate their sloughed-off shells. Those shells contained high levels of radioactivity, hence, the AEC announced that the crabs were still radioactive and could be eaten only in limited numbers. The conflicting information on the radiological contamination of Bikini supplied by the AEC caused the Bikinian Council to vote not to return to Bikini at the time previously scheduled by American officials. The Council, however, stated that it would not prevent individuals from making independent decisions to return.

Three extended Bikinian families, their desire to return to Bikini being great enough to outweigh the alleged radiological dangers, moved back to Bikini Island and into the newly constructed cement houses. They were accompanied by approximately 50 Marshallese workers who were involved in the construction and maintenance of the buildings.

The population of islanders on Bikini slowly increased over the years until in June of 1975, during regular monitoring of Bikini, radiological tests discovered "higher levels of radioactivity than originally thought." U.S. Department of Interior officials stated that "Bikini appears to be hotter or questionable as to safety" and an additional report pointed out that some water wells on Bikini Island were also too contaminated with radioactivity for drinking. A couple of months later the AEC, on review of the scientists' data, decided that the local foods grown on Bikini Island, i.e., pandanus, breadfruit and coconut crabs, were also too radioactive for human consumption. Medical tests of urine samples from the 100 people living on Bikini detected the presence of low levels of plutonium 239 and 240. Robert Conard of Brookhaven Laboratories commented that these readings "are probably not radiologically significant."

In October of 1975, after contemplating these new, terrifying and confusing reports on the radiological condition of their atoll, the Bikinians filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court demanding that a complete scientific survey of Bikini and the northern Marshalls be conducted. The lawsuit stated that the U.S. had used highly sophisticated and technical radiation detection equipment at Enewetak Atoll, but had refused to employ it at Bikini. The result of the lawsuit was to convince the U.S. to agree to conduct an aerial radiological survey of the northern Marshalls in December of 1975. Unfortunately, more than three years of bureaucratic squabbles between the U.S. Departments of State, Interior and Energy over costs and responsibility for the survey, delayed any action on its implementation. The Bikinians, unaware of the severity of the radiological danger, remained on their contaminated islands.

While waiting for the radiological survey to be conducted, further discoveries of these radiological dangers were made. In May of 1977 the level of radioactive strontium-90 in the well water on Bikini Island was found to exceed the U.S. maximum allowed limits. A month later a Department of Energy study stated that "All living patterns involving Bikini Island exceed Federal [radiation] guidelines for thirty year population doses." Later in the same year, a group of U.S. scientists, while on Bikini, recorded an 11-fold increase in the cesium-137 body burdens of the more than 100 people residing on the island. Alarmed by these numbers, the DOE told the people living on Bikini to eat only one coconut per day and began to ship in food for consumption.

In April of 1978 medical examinations performed by U.S. physicians revealed radiation levels in many of the now 139 people on Bikini to be well above the U.S. maximum permissible level. The very next month U.S. Interior Department officials described the 75% increase in radioactive cesium 137 as "incredible." The Interior Department then announced plans to move the people from Bikini "within 75 to 90 days," and so in September of 1978, Trust Territory officials arrived on Bikini to once again evacuate the people who were living on the atoll. An ironic footnote to the situation is that the long awaited northern Marshalls radiological survey, forced by the 1975 lawsuit brought by the Bikinians against the U.S. government, finally began only after the people were again relocated from Bikini.

** According to a Defense Nuclear Agency report on the Bravo blast, the weather briefing the day before the detonation stated that there would be "no significant fallout...for the populated Marshalls." Later, at 6 p.m., however, "the predicted winds were less favorable; nevertheless, the decision to shoot was reaffirmed, but with another review of the winds scheduled for midnight." The midnight briefing "indicated less favorable winds at 10,000 to 25,000-foot levels." Winds at 20,000 feet "were headed for Rongelap to the east," and "it was recognized that both Bikini and Eneman islands would probably be contaminated."

Martin and Rowland, Castle Series, 1954, supra
note 28, at 22.





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[DiverKen]

After about 6 years of thinking about it, 18 months of planning it and a long trip to Bikini, stopping off en route in Honolulu, we were finally kitted up on the boat and ready for the check-out dive on the Saratoga - a 40 minute dive at 35 meters on the largest wreck in the world has got to be a good start to a dive trip!

THE SARATOGA

As we piled down towards the deck, we passed the Gun Director and bridge, covered with coral and surrounded by jacks and bat fish. Massive grins all round as we hit the deck which stretched off in either direction. The bow and stern were invisible in the distance and the aircraft lift shafts were spookily dark, these were all treats in store for us on dives later in the week. We finned over the port side to see the bottom another 25 meters below, 2 aircraft on the bottom to be explored later in the week. We inspected the anti-aircraft guns and the heavy guns on the side of the ship before returning to the bridge via the huge double 5 inch gun in front of the superstructure. The bridge was perfect, light filtering through the slits in the dogged down ports. I finally got to try the tiny joystick that was used to steer this massive ship and see the dials and binnacles and the bugle hung up behind the bridge. On our next dive, we dropped down the lift shaft and saw the 500 pound bombs and the Hell Diver planes sitting in the hanger deck with wings folded. The rear flight deck is dented in from the A-Bomb test and the ceiling of the hanger deck has collapsed in, the main bulkhead sways eerily in the current like a massive curtain of steel. While the planes look almost useable after a good dust when you view them from a distance, when you get close, you can see the damage and also find that the fuselage metal is so thin that you cannot touch it in case you poke through it. Dishwashers and kitchen equipment from the deck above have fallen through, adding a surreal touch to the hanger deck. Also above, there are massive walk-in freezers that threaten the planes below.

On another dive, we entered via the rear aircraft lift to do the dive known as "the haunted house" as the dent in the deck has created two spooky tunnels on either side of the hanger. A solitary Mazda light bulb reflects your torch beam as you start the trip round, passing torpedoes, depth charges, racks of rockets etc. Faint blue light can be seen from ports above - leaving the starboard side, you swim over the gully and over to the port side, entering the wreck via a couple of hatches to gain entry to the port side of the hanger, again this is spookily dark and silty with faint patches of blue way above you as you work to the front hatch and rise slowly to the light above.

The bow dive has to be the most impressive sight, I swam out and out from the bow to try to see the entire sight, by the time I could frame it all in a 16mm lens, I was too far away to light it with a strobe. I took a couple of shots anyway but it is just too big. Under the bow, the main anchor chain flows out of a massive "mouth". Following the chains down to 55 meters and looking up at the bow rising to make a giant letter "T" where the flight deck meets it just has to be one of diving's greatest sights. Finning out from under the wreck, you find a Hell Diver with 2 500 lb bombs lying upside down on the bottom. Next to this there is an Avenger with a huge torpedo. Inside the torpedo bay, 2 clown fish have set up home, oblivious to the threat that the unexploded torpedo poses. As I passed, a huge stingray settled himself in the sand to hide - the 3 arm length remoras on his back did kind of give the game away though! As we swam back, the 25 meter high shadow that is the Saratoga's hull filled us with awe as we headed back up to yet another 40 minute deco stop on 75% Nitrox.

If you are a real depth hound, there is a scour on the bottom beside the port propeller that will give you 58 meters on your computer, the official "deepest point in Bikini". Swimming out, there is yet another dive bomber on the bottom. Rising back up the side, you swim along the covered companionway, looking into the cabins before dropping back down into the hanger at the mid point for another chance to photograph the bombs, more bombs, bigger bombs, torpedoes and the planes. On the way back up, you can check out the 5 inch shell charges and shells in the ready use store under the bridge and get Tim to pose with his collection of musical instruments.

The Saratoga is truly "awesome" as the Californians say! It defies description - DIVE IT!

Launched April 7, 1925 and commissioned November 27, 1927, Saratoga was a massive ship for her time and she still is today. She is 850 feet long at the waterline and almost 900 feet long at the flight deck. Completely loaded with fuel, munitions, aircraft and provisions, she weighed about 48,000 tons with a draft of 27.5 feet. Her 180,000 hp steam turbines drove her at speeds up to 34 knots [38 mph]. Saratoga was faster than any battleship of her day. [In comparison, Titanic was 883 feet overall, had a gross tonnage of 46,228 tons, 51,000 hp and a top speed of 23 to 24 knots.]

THE LAMSON

"OK" I thought when Tim Williams briefed us before the dive, "A destroyer is a destroyer, is a destroyer...small, guns, stuff..what's this after the Saratoga?". But this turned out to be a stunning dive - so good we asked to go back for another look.

Dropping down in a swarm, bubble tubes linking us to the surface like ropes, we raced each other the 55 meters to the Lamson. The ship is almost hidden by glassfish, I tried to photograph the bridge but all I got was glassfish! A nice shark stopped behind Paul for a photo shoot. Paul obligingly posed for the shot, completely unaware that a shark was lying right behind him. The wreck has big guns, small guns, torpedoes, depth charges, a telegraph with ruby glass for night lighting. One of the anti-aircraft guns has a red anemone round the end of the barrel with a yellow sponge inside the barrel..this looks like the flash of a real shot being fired from the gun. Dipping down the engine room hatch, the maker's name can be seen on the boiler plate.

This was a classic dive. My deco ended up taking a fair spell as my Suunto Vytec (again) registered the wrong depth, 5 meters shallower than reality and my Dive Rite Nitek3. So I had to do my 3 meter stops at 8 meters to keep the Suunto happy and then do my "proper" stops while the Suunto decided it was on the surface at 5 meters and went into surface mode. When we got back home, I returned it to Suunto and got a new one in the post.

[DiverKen]

THE ARKANSAS

This is a classic WWI battleship. As at Scapa Flow, battleships turn over as they sink due to the weight of guns and superstructure. As you drop down the side, you find a classic old battleship side gun mount. Carrying on under the ship into the dark, you come across the massive 12 inch guns that jut out the side. Coming to the bow, you see the "reverse" shaped bow which comes to a point on the bottom rather than the modern cruiser bows. This looks almost like an ancient Greek ramming bow and makes a great photo opportunity. Swimming up to the bottom, you see the massive damage the bomb made. The thick armour is twisted and crushed like tin foil, 12 inch plate buckled into contorted shapes. A fantastic dive!

THE NAGATO

Diving on His Imperial Japanese Majesty's Ship, the battleship Nagato, was a dive into history. She was the most hated ship at Bikini because she was associated with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Nagato's biggest sin was having been Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's flagship in 1941, when he and his staff planned the Pearl harbor attack. Ironically, neither Admiral Yamamoto nor Nagato participated in the actual attack. Nagato was the only Japanese battleship to survive the war and some thought using her as a target vessel was an act of revenge because of her association with the Pearl Harbor attack. Once a proud ship, 727 feet, 9 inches long and weighing 42,850 tons when fully loaded, she now lies upside down in 160 to 170 feet of water. Her huge propellers reach up from her hull; her bridge juts out to one side.

Lying upside down with a slight list to port, she is easy to get at. Diving under the massive deck, you swim "up" into the deck, entering the huge seaplane hanger and then exit through the side hatches. going back down, you swim under the wreck, blue light visible at the edge of your vision. At first you do not realise that they are guns..the massive 16 inch barrels are improbably huge and everyone just has to see if their head can really fit in the end! As the bottom is at 53 meters, you have to leave the guns some time and go to visit the massive props to get a few diver and big prop photos. As Tim says "those Japanese sure had propeller envy!" they are pretty big!!! A lovely grey reef shark followed us all the way back to the deco bar and slowly circled us as we did our 47 minutes on the bar.

The Nagato bow came later, again there was a nice shark at the bridge that is lying out to the side. This is a massive structure with gun director ports. A Pagoda of steel! A great chance to see where Yamamoto launched the Pearl Harbour attack with the cry of "Climb Mount Nitaka!". Carrying on under the deck, darkness surrounds you as you travel between the massive 16 inch gun turrets, rising up unto the wreck, you find the famous Nagato Wheel, nobody knows what the heck it does but everyone takes a shot of their buddy turning it anyway.

THE ANDERSON

This is the Lamson on its side. 350 ft long with a nice prop sticking up for photos. Bridge is really accessible and a toilet sits strangely on the bottom beside it. Loads of destroyer stuff for destroying things: guns, torpedoes, more guns, depth charges, even more guns and a friendly house shark that seemed to be guiding me round, proudly showing off the features of the wreck. As with the Lamson, glassfish almost hide the wreck at times. While we toured around, Tim was continuing to try and pry open a hatch that will open up more of the inside...but a cunning buckle at the foot continues to confound his efforts. His cursing was almost louder than the noise of his lump hammer and chisel!

THE APOGON

Having toured the USS Bowfin in Pearl Harbour, we were well prepared for this. An added bonus was a bunch of sharks that darted up to meet us as we started down the 53 meter drop to the wreck. I managed to get a couple of shots in before they got bored and went off to look for something more interesting. The sub is covered in whip coral and glass fish (which are also called Apogon!). There are two interesting Remote Torpedo Directors forward and aft of the conning tower. There is a nice big hole above the forward torpedo room and you can see the torpedoes, bunks and loads of brass!!! A lovely sub dive. As we started back up the line, the sharks returned, cruising effortlessly round us as we headed for another fun filled 40 minutes on 75% Nitrox before getting back to the sunlight.



THE TRIP

The trip was a delight to organise, Layne Ballard of CPDE helped out with the Marshall Islands part and everything ran like clockwork - I just have to congratulate myself for my astounding efforts in making this such a success! We flew from Edinburgh to Honolulu with United Airlines, Honolulu to Majuro with Continental and Majuro to Bikini with Air Marshall Islands. Accommodation in Honolulu was Ohana Maile Sky Court and we stayed in the Ohana Outrigger Resort in Majuro. Both were excellent value and very comfortable.

In Honolulu, we dived with Alex Mason's excellent AAA Diving - highly entertaining chap and very organised diving!

We were just a bunch of Scottish divers who wanted to dive the Saratoga, we did it and then some! We have fantastic memories of the trip and many photos to enjoy.

On Bikini - huge thanks to Tim Williams, Jon Salas, Edward Maddison, Ronnie Lokiar and all the guys who run the Island. All the dive briefings were thorough and comprehensive and also great fun. Every dive is 40 to 55 meters on air and deco is carried out at 24, 12, 9, 6 & 3 meters, the 9 meter and above stops on 75% Nitrox fed from the boat to the 3 bar trapeze below the boat. I had to admire the Scubapro MK25 first stage that fed all 15 of us on the bar - that valve must stay open for the full hour we hung there every dive!!!

I hope this inspires others to get out there and dive Bikini - it was my dream for many years and I can't explain how I felt to get there and dive the Saratoga.

[steve75]

One day I will have money!!!
Then I will go there to.I love wreckdiving.

[Sharki]

Several months ago I saw a reportage about the Bikini atoll in the tv. The diving is excellent, some wrecks are quiet deep but what they showed was awesome!!!!
Especially one dive spot, where no diver would go into the water without cage... White tip reefsharks somehow got mad there and are aggressive as hell... They assume it is because of the influence of the radioactivity. The only weird thing is, it is the only spot where fish went crazy ...
But I agree with steve 75, I have to go down there as well!!! ;D ;D ;D

[tekmac]

Extensive review !But I guess it can´t hurt to get a little info on who had to suffer for our divesites.
One thing kind of bugs me there,why would you do this kind of dives on air ?
I'am sure with this kind of divesites the shops there would have trimix,nitrox or even rebreather.
I guess I'am not british wingnut enough for that sort of diving ;D,but it sure as hell sounds like worth a trip.Guess I have to start saving some money!Any ideas what price range
we are talking for around 14 days??

[LSDeep]

here a good website regarding bikini

www.bikiniatoll.com/divetour.html

i went diving there in '97 and had a great time. would say the best diving i ever did! but then again i say that about nearly every dive ;D ;D
the cost factor wasnt that great spending 6 weeks in and around the marshall islands incl all diving and airfares came to nearly U$7000

but hey as the germans say:

ich bereue nichts!

[scubadaddy]

sorry, that was to much information to read for me

but i know a bit about the marshalls. Great diving, not just in bikini atoll, great diving conditions with lots of fish. but a hell of a long way to get there ...

wish i can do it one time ... but i don´t give up hope ... i play lotto every week !

marshalls - i aaaam coooming ! ;D