No Place to Hide 1946/1984

by David John Bradley

Book Overview

A reissue of the 1948 eyewitness report of early atom bomb tests at Bikini & an analysis of the dangers of nuclear weapons, with a new introduction & epilogue. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0874512751
• ISBN13: 9780874512755
• Release Date: January 1983
• Publisher: Dartmouth
• Length: 252 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A forgotten witness

This is a little book by David Bradley, a medical doctor who was part of a US Army and Navy task force during two early atomic bomb tests in the south Pacific. He is an eyewitness to Test Able and Test Baker. Anyone who has actually had the opportunity to read this book will become well-educated about the tactical power of nuclear weapons in the air and at sea, and will also be instructed in the history of that era -- when the USA had the bomb, and the other nations didn't. It wasn't long before the USSR had the fission bomb, and started making their own test explosions in central Asia. Also, it wasn't long before the fusion-based explosive device was invented: the Hydrogen bomb, which uses a fusion bomb to ignite the fusion reaction.

Physician's-eye view of 1946 Bikini Atoll nuclear test.

Dr. Bradley starts on May 29, 1946 as Navy ships leave San Francisco for the mid-Pacific. "Operation Crossroads" was a test of nuclear weapons occurring on Bikini Atoll in 1946. The 1948-edition jacket reads, "...Convinced published reports available to the average man have given him an incomplete and therefore distorted view, have even perhaps lulled him into a false sense of security, Dr. Bradley has interpreted the real truth for everyone to read." Bradley reports events in a log format by date. The flavor of the trip is accurately described along with technical remarks. Bradley comments, "Sailors can be the most profane and uncouth men on earth... It would be impossible to record the language they use. It is so degenerate, so monotonously vile, that even the most blasphemous expressions become meaningless." The trip is described like some bizarre Rick Steves video with a medical flavor. Bradley details events of the days prior to the tests, Able Day test, and Baker Day test. He describes observations and complex physics in terms the lay person can appreciate. For example, "...the damage seems to be so haphazard and occasionally so violent as to suggest the action of some primordial force beyond one's comprehension. The energy released in the explosion of an atomic bomb is that mysterious energy which holds the nuclei of atoms together. The unstable uranium or plutonium nucleus requires a vast amount of energy to hold it together, whereas the binding energy required to hold together a smaller more stable atom like barium is proportionally much less.It is the excess of nuclear energy which is given off (since it is no longer needed) when fission takes place and the heavy, unstable atom breaks down into several smaller, stable units." He gives a medical perspective, laced with reality, describing the events of the test: "...[conditions] are still far better than one could hope for in time of atomic war. It is indeed hard to imagine that a population or an army exposed to a similar rain of radioactive material could ever afford the luxury of urinalysis. From a medical as well as a military point of view, urinalysis, blood counts, and other such protective measures would be about as useful to a fellow in such a catastrophe as Metropolitan Life Insurance." The final entry in the book describes October 9 & 10. An appendix details basic nuclear physics and radioactivity. While this work may have been forgotten by many it is an important firsthand accountof a nuclear detonation: an event (hopefully) few of us will ever witness.