Crossroads Able "Gilda"

Abstract

At 5:55 am local time on June 30, 1946, a B-29 bomber took to the air carrying a Fat Man bomb, christened Gilda. Named after a Rita Haworth movie character, Gilda was released over a target array of ninety-three ships, including the Japanese battleship Nagato, the German cruiser Prinz Eugen, and the United States aircraft carrier Independence, all of which carried varying amounts of munitions, fuel, and animals. Although Gilda missed its aiming point, the explosion sank five ships and severely damaged eight others. A large number of pigs, goats, and rats were exposed to lethal doses of ionizing radiation. Visually, Gilda was not that impressive, particularly to those expecting an apocalyptic event. As the New York Times reporter William Laurence recalled, “To some of the newspaper men aboard, keyed up to the point of expecting the observer ship to be blown out of the water, the spectacle, obscured somewhat by an intervening white cloud, was a disappointment. To me, who could distinguish between the natural cloud and the atomic cloud, the sight was awesome and spine chilling.”