Operation Castle was a six-detonation test series held at the
Atomic Energy Commission's (AEC) Pacific Proving Ground in the Spring
of 1954. This test series, principally conducted at the Enewetak
and Bikini Atolls in the northwestern Marshall Islands, provided
proof tests of large-yield thermonuclear, or hydrogen, devices.
Castle represented the end of a drive for a workable thermonuclear
weapon and the beginning of the refinement of large-H-bombs into
smaller and more efficient weapons.
After Castle, the U.S. could choose in a range of small tactical
weapons to large strategic weapons. From this point, weapons development
programs concentrated on producing bombs of specific nuclear weapons
effects -- heat, blast, and radiation.
The Bravo event of the Castle series yielded 15 megatons, the most
ever exploded in atmospheric testing by the U.S. A scientific miscalculation
caused the yield to be about double what was expected. Also, reports
indicate that Bravo was the single worst incident of fallout exposure
in all of the U.S. atmospheric testing program.
Fallout was scattered over more than 7,000 square miles of ocean
and islands, resulting in the contamination and exposure of military,
civilian U.S. personnel working on the shot, and people of the islands
who were earlier moved to a supposedly "safe" island but
received large amounts of radiation. Acute radiation effects were
observed among some of these people.
The total run time of this DVD is 20 minutes.
Here are some sample clips from the DVD
 
 
 
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