These nuclear bomb detonations, (known as the Able and Baker Tests respectively), took place in July 1946 as part of Operation Crossroads on the island of Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. A fleet of decommissioned US and seized Japanese vessels were deployed in the area with the intention of simulating and documenting the effects of nuclear weapons in naval warfare. They were the precursors to a series of large thermonuclear tests that over the next decade or so would render Bikini unfit for huma...
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