Bill Ward Story
On Thu, 5 Jul 2001 10:01:06 -0600 "Bill K. Ward" wrote:
LeRoy,
I think I was one of those who failed to respond to Hank's survey.
Now I am
sorry that I didn't. The results of his study are shocking indeed. So
far, I
am not aware of any ill effects, but just to show what fools (or
would the
word be victims) we were back then, let me tell you a true story.
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My atom bomb experience -
It seems that the Feds did not do a thorough study of land ownership
around
Groom Lake, a dry, flat lakebed that became the site for several
above
ground nuclear shots. After one of the early shots, they discovered
that
someone had taken photos of the mushroom cloud from up close and had
taken
them to Vegas for development. The drug store reported the photos
to the
Feds and when the guy came to pick them up, he was arrested. They
then
discovered that the Groom Mine was only a few miles up in the hills
to the
North of Groom Lake and that people up there had a grandstand seat.
The
Feds did nothing about this but after that, whenever a mushroom
cloud
drifted that way, the army would send someone up to the mine and
order them
to evacuate.
If you will recall, I was a photography nut back then and worked for
the Las
Vegas Sun as a photographer. It was a big deal to cover a nuclear
shot and
my boss had a friend who leaked the date of a shot to him (so much
for
national security) so he and I decided to go up to the Groom mine to
take
photos. We had some of the guys back in the shop fashion us a box
made out
of lead to shield our film because we knew that radiation would fog
it -
just didn't know how much it would take.
We proceeded to drive up there via Alamo and set up our cameras. From
our
vantage point, we could see the lights of the tower containing the
device.
We estimated that the distance was about 18 miles. Then we turned
our backs
to the tower because we knew that the flash would temporarily blind
us if we
were looking at it when it went off. As I recall, the time was
about 6 am
when it went up. What a flash! You think it was bright in Vegas?
We
immediately turned around and took some photos. The creation of the
cloud
was an incredible thing to see.
The cloud just grew, and grew, and grew.... It went up, and up, and
up...I
guess it reached an angle of 60 degrees above the horizon before the
army
came up the road and told us to get out of there - the cloud was
drifting
our way. We didn't wait to be told twice - we had important film to
protect
(how about us?). We threw our film in the lead box and headed out.
The
only problem was that the road out went directly toward the mushroom
cloud
before it turned East toward Alamo - for 6 miles! It was the only
way out
so we drove the 6 miles (the mushroom cloud had moved to about 80
degrees
above the horizon by now) and then made a left turn toward Alamo.
Then, just as we turned, we had a slight problem. Since this was a
dirt
road, it was a bit rough - rough enough to cause us to blow a tire.
We were
getting pretty worried (about our film, of course) so we got out and
changed
the wheel. Did you know that you can change the right rear wheel on
a '48
Ford in about 40 seconds if you really, really want to? It may be
just my
imagination but it seemed that the cloud was actually over us by
now. In
any case, we were definitely looking up into the head of the thing.
Fortunately for us, after the initial shock wave, there was no wind
to carry
dust along the ground and the debris had not yet begun to fall out
from the
cloud. Anyway, after getting the tire fixed, we headed back to
Vegas
without further incident. The lead box did a good job and our film
survived.
I still have the 16mm movie film that I shot that day. It didn't
turn out
very good - poor exposure, but I do have it. I can't remember the
exact
date but I know that if I went to the morgue of the Las Vegas Sun, I
could
pinpoint the exact day, because I got a credit under some of the
photos we
shot.
Still happy to be here after all these years - Bill Ward
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