Involuntary Participation in Nuclear Testing,
The Story of One Atomic Veteran
Dedicated to Cecil W. Burns (1927 – 1994)
USAF 1951 – 1955, USAF RES & Civil Service 1956 - 1972
From 1945 until 1963, over 382,000 U.S. Servicemen as well as tens of thousands of civilian, AEC, DOD personnel, native persons, and “down-winders” took part (most involuntarily and some unknowingly) in a variety of tests during the development of atomic weapons and the subsequent “Cold War” period when the Atomic Energy Commission working in conjunction with the Department of Defense had troops participate in and witness the detonations at the various Pacific, Nevada, and New Mexico Test areas. Most detonations were larger than and emitted considerably more deadly radiation than the two weapons which were employed against Japan at the end of WWII. During the tests various government agencies and departments were interested in learning about the various effects of atomic and nuclear weapons, as well as how these weapons affected the immediate performance of military personnel and equipment. Troops, ships, and various types of equipment were placed from several hundred yards to several miles from the center of each detonation. On many occasions military personnel performed maneuvers in and around ground zero without protective clothing or respiratory devices.
On 30 August 1954, President Eisenhower authorized Operation TEAPOT to test a number of weapon systems and applications. The Operation consisted of 14 Nuclear Tests from February 1955 to May 1955.
My father joined the Air Force in 1951. After basic training and instruction in aircraft and aircraft engine maintenance, he was assigned to the 510th Fighter/Bomber Squadron as an aircraft mechanic and migrated with the Squadron from Godman AFB, Kentucky to Langley AFB, Virginia. On 19 January 1955, 134 Officers and Enlisted men of the 510th Fighter/Bomber Squadron of the 405th Fighter/Bomber Group, TAC, received orders to be deployed to George AFB, California to participate in project “Tea Pot”. The duration of their participation was from 24 January 1955 until 25 February 1955. A1C Cecil W. Burns was one of the 134 sent to take part.
During the 1955 TEAPOT (and the later 1956 REDWING) nuclear test series, manned aircraft were used to map the amount and distribution of radiation within some of the resulting mushroom clouds. The objective was to obtain information needed to plan for the safe and effective use of military aircraft in cloud areas during combat operations.
Studies conducted in 1953 using animal subjects in drone aircraft had previously shown that it would be safe for manned aircraft to enter atomic clouds relatively soon after detonation. Penetrations of clouds from low-yield detonations were made during Operation TEAPOT in 1955. Special radiation exposure limits, in excess of the usual 3.9 roentgens maximum permissible exposure limit, were established for some of these flight crews.
Among the tests conducted at Teapot was Project 2.8a (Contact Radiation Hazard Associated with Contaminated Aircraft) and Project 2.8b, (Manned Penetration of Atomic Clouds). In some cases, the same aircraft were used for both projects.
The objective of Project 2.8a, conducted during the “Wasp” and “Moth” shots (the two shots made during the time of the 510th’s participation) Contact Radiation Hazard Associated with Contaminated Aircraft, was to assess the hazard presented by personal contact with aircraft that had just flown through a nuclear cloud. The project included several phases, including aircraft penetration of the nuclear cloud, survey of the aircraft surfaces, study of the decay of radiation on the aircraft, and personnel exposure studies.
Air Force jet aircraft departed from Indian Springs AFB after each detonation, flew through the nuclear cloud, and returned immediately to Indian Springs AFB. In the earlier shots of Operation TEAPOT, Project 2.8a studies were confined to F-84 aircraft, which were used for nuclear cloud-sampling missions by the 4926th Test Squadron (Sampling). At later shots, B-36, B-57, and T-33 aircraft were studied. The T-33s were also used for Project 2.8b, which required the aircraft to fly through the nuclear cloud much earlier than the sampling aircraft in an effort to obtain data on how time of penetration affected the levels of surface contamination.
After the aircraft landed, project personnel held standard gamma survev meters near the contaminated surfaces to determine their radiation intensities. Several types of meters were used and their readings were compared. After the initial surface contamination studies, Project 2.8a personnel evaluated the decay of radioactivity on the aircraft in two ways. Aircraft were resurveyed periodicallv over the next two days to assess the rate of decay, and project participants attached film to contaminated areas of the aircraft with masking tape to assess the accumulation of radiation exposure. The film was removed for analysis within 24 hours after the detonation.
The last phase of Project 2.8a was a study of project personnel involved in making the film surveys described above. Some participants placed film over the hands and fingers of their gloves while they performed the radiation survey work. The film was then removed, developed, and evaluated to assess accumulated dose to ground crews working on contaminated aircraft. Another technique was to have the project personnel rub the base of their hands over the surface of an aircraft with known contamination. An autoradiograph of the hand was then made by placing the hand on a large x-ray film packet for a period of time and then developing the film to observe the image created. In this way, changes in the contamination patterns of aircraft and relative amounts of contamination transferred to the hand could be measured. While conducting these studies, none of the survey team exceeded the AFSWC maximum permissible exposure of 3.9 roentgens for ground crew personnel.
One of the 510th F84-F pilots related one particular flight to me via e-mail:
“Frankly, about the mission... In those days they took classified information to heart and only told us what we needed to know and that was not very much... As far as I could tell we had 16 aircraft in trail formation heading due West at (I believe it was at 20,000 feet) but I really do not remember. At a given time (about 16 seconds before detonation of the bomb) number 16 would break 90 degrees to a heading of South (angling towards the blast zone)... All of the other aircraft would follow in 1-second intervals. In other words, we had 16 seconds for all of us to take up a heading of South before the detonation of the bomb. This flight test was supposedly to see the results of night blindness caused by the blast and of course any damage from shock from the sound waves that ensued...”
A1/C Cecil W. Burns, AF14450113, participated in maintenance of F-84F and/or T-33 aircraft that had been contaminated from flying in or near the blast area(s). He kept in correspondence with many of his fellow squadron members and observed the majority of the ones he was familiar with suffer and die from leukemia, bone cancer, lung cancer, various melanomas, and other more rare forms of cancer. In A Message from the Medical Data Base Custodian, Boley H. Caldwell III, the former NAAV database custodian, reports: “...the present data indicates a cancer death rate for American Atomic Veterans of over 78% and an average age at death of 56 years. So that you know we are not alone, research by British Atomic Veterans reveals a cancer death rate of 91% (percent) and an average age at death of 51 years; research by Australian Atomic Veterans indicates the cancer death rate is 81% with an average age at death of 53 years.”
Dad began his own 30-year battle with skin cancer in the early 1960’s, and in those 30 years he was diagnosed with at least two, and possibly three, different forms of skin cancer. In the fall of 1993 he was diagnosed with a form of lung cancer and with bone cancer in his vertebrae and ribs. Even after surgery followed by extensive radiation therapy, he died from these cancers on 03 August 1994. He was 66 years old. Nearly forty years after the fact, Cecil W. Burns made the ultimate sacrifice to his country as one of nearly half a million atomic veterans.
On 13 October 2004 I received a letter of verification for my father's participation in Operation Teapot from the DTRA. The last paragraph reads, in part, “We wish to extend our sincerest appreciation for your father's dedicated service to our country.”
So do I.
Dad, I'll always look up to you, no matter how tall I've grown.
Bruce W. Burns