Enewetak

Aerial view of Enewetok and Parry.

Enewetak (or Eniwetok) is an atoll in the Marshall Islands of the central Pacific Ocean. Its land consists of about 40 small islets totalling less than 6 km², surrounding a lagoon, 80 km (50 mi) in circumference. It is located at [11°30′N 162°20′E], making 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 place 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. This went on from 1948 to 1962, when atmospheric testing ended. The first hydrogen bomb test, code-named Ivy Mike, was in late 1952 as part of Operation Ivy. This test included the use of Drone B-17's to fly through the radioactive cloud for the purpose of testing on board samples. The Drones were controlled by B-17 Mother ships flying within visual distance of these Drones. In all there were 16-20 B-17's taking part in this operation of which half were Mother aircraft and half Drone aircraft.

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 US government began removing contaminated soil and other material from the atoll, declaring it safe for habitation in 1980.

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.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.

Media

[Enewetak nuclear detonation tests] ([file info])
- Video clips of three test nuclear explosions in Eniwetok, Marshall Islands.
Problems seeing the videos? See .

Notes

External link

[Annotated bibliography for Eniwetok Atoll from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues]

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