“We will go believing that everything is in the hands of God,” said the king of Bikini Atoll in 1946. The previous year, president Truman had declared that the Pacific archipelago would be America’s nuclear testing ground. Part of the Marshall Islands, its inhabitants would be moved some 125 miles eastward to a neighbouring enclave, and the tests would commence.
The first test, Able, was dropped by aircraft over the lagoon, sinking five military ships. It raised the surface sea temperature an extraordinary 55,000C. Others followed; their effects measured on military ships (largely destroyed) and on animals (goats, pigs, mice: mostly incinerated).
By 1954, the pressure of the Cold War was such that testing intensified. The military ordered Operation Castle, detonating Bravo, a thermonuclear bomb a thousand times more powerful than those at Hiroshima and Nagasaki – the most powerful ever dropped by the United States. Surging 20 miles high, the resulting fireball was far more impactful than expected; radioactive material was detected in India, Australia, the US and Europe.
“We had no idea what we were doing,” said a designer involved in the test. On Bikini Atoll, coconut trees were left entirely stripped; the islanders began to show signs of radiation poisoning. A complicated resettlement plan was put in place for residents, but by 1978 radiation levels were still so high that a permanent return was deemed impossible.
Since then, no original islanders have returned h.