Enewetak

Enewetak

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Enewetak

Aerial view of Enewetak and Parry.

Map of Enewetak Atoll

Video clips of three test nuclear explosions in Eniwetok, Marshall Islands

Enewetak (or Eniwetok) is an atoll in the Marshall Islands of the central Pacific Ocean. Its land consists of about 40 small islets totaling less than 6 km², surrounding a lagoon, 80 km (50 mi) in circumference. It is located at , making it the second westernmost atoll of the Ralik Chain. 1999 population was 820.

Technically a Spanish colony, Enewetak was not known to Europeans until visited in 1794 by the British merchant sloop Walpole, who called it "Brown's Range" (thus the Japanese name "Brown Atoll"). It was visited by only a dozen or so ships before the establishment of the German colony of the Marshall Islands in 1885. Along with the rest of the Marshalls, Enewetak was captured by Japan in 1914 and mandated to them by the League of Nations in 1920.

The Japanese mostly ignored the atoll until World War II. In November 1942, they built an airfield on Engebi Island, which was used for staging planes to the Carolines and the rest of the Marshalls. When the Gilberts fell to the US, the Japanese Army's 1st Amphibious Brigade came in to defend the atoll, January 4, 1944. They were unable to finish fortifying the island before the February invasion by the US, which captured all the islets in a week.

After the war, the residents were evacuated, often involuntarily, and the atoll was used for nuclear testing as part of the U.S. Pacific Proving Grounds. Bodies of United States servicemen killed in the Battle of Enewetak and buried there were exhumed before testing commenced and returned to the United States to be re-buried by their families. Some 43 nuclear tests were fired at Enewetak from 1948 to 1958. The first hydrogen bomb test, code-named Ivy Mike, was in late 1952 as part of Operation Ivy, and vaporized the island of Elugelab. This test included the use of B-17 Flying Fortress drones to fly through the radioactive cloud for the purpose of testing onboard samples.

The drones were controlled by B-17 mother ships flying within visual distance of these drones. In all there were 16 to 20 B-17s taking part in this operation, of which half were controlling aircraft and half were drones.

For examination of the explosion clouds of the nuclear bombs in 1957/58 several rockets (mostly from rockoons) were launched.

The people began returning in the 1970s, and on May 15, 1977, the U.S. government directed the military to decontaminate the islands. This was done by mixing the contaminated soil and debris from the various islands with Portland cement and burying it in one of the blast craters. The crater was at the northern end of Runit , which is an island on the eastern side of the atoll. This continued until the crater became a spherical mound high. The crater was then covered with an thick concrete cap. All services participated in this effort.

The U.S. government declared the islands safe for habitation in 1980.

In 2000, the Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal awarded in excess of $340 million to the people of Enewetak for loss of use, hardship, medical difficulties and further nuclear cleanup.

Note that this award does not include the approximately $6 million annually budgeted by the U.S. for education and health programs in the Marshall Islands.

The U.S. government referred to the atoll as "Eniwetok" until 1974, when it changed its official spelling to "Enewetak" (along with many other Marshall Islands place names) to more properly reflect their proper pronunciation by the Marshall Islanders.^[1]

Notes

↑ Barton C. Hacker, Elements of controversy : the Atomic Energy Commission and radiation safety in nuclear weapons testing, 1947-1974 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994): p. 14.