A short story from Phil

It was the early morning hours as the sun rose on Christmas Island. The airman of VP-872 would gather at the airfield where their SP2H Neptune Bombers were turned into the wind with engines whining at a low idle.  All eyes were skyward looking for that trail from the jet that was to deliver the test payload. We looked at each other and joked as airman do and looking at the picture of our Rad badges that we all wore with our different security clearances. We would check to make sure we wore our decrement, a round brown plastic gizmo on a chain with our dog tags.

We could hear that distinctive voice of Christopher Craft over the Island public address systems, telling us step by step of the event to take place. 

The announcement was as the drop took place, and now we have the count down to detonation . We would adjust our dark welder type glasses that were issued to us and instructed to turn our backs to the blast and do not look in that direction. (It was reported that someone did and they're blind today). We would hear his voice in later years doing the space events with NASA saying we have lift off Houston.)

As the count down reached its conclusion there  was a very bright light, so bright that through the glasses everything seemed to loose all spectrum of color, this lasted about ten seconds or so. The explosion sound would follow depending on the distance off the island and elevation of the test.

This was the first drop and the start of more to come, I asked myself, "what is this world coming to that we have to resort  to such destructive power?" (it was scary then and is still now) I hope that it will never have to be used again. There were a lot of sober faces that day, realizing that this was the same size that dropped on Japan.

Phil Toon AK3