ORIGINAL PAPER After Crossroads: The Fate of the Atomic Bomb Target Fleet James P. Delgado 1 Published online: 24 March 2016 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York (outside the USA) 2016 Abstract The atomic tests at Bikini Atoll left a submerged archaeological legacy in the form of sixty-one shipwrecks at or near Bikini, Kwajalein, the California coast, and in two other lesser cases off Oahu and the coast of Washington State. Together they comprise a unique maritime cultural landscape of the Cold War, and the naval aspects of that conflict. Keywords Naval Á Atomic weapons Á Cold War During Operation Crossroads, the atomic tests at Bikini Atoll in July 1946, the detonation of two bombs sank 19 ships inside Bikini Lagoon. Five of the ships sank outright or within a short time after Test ‘Able’ on July 1, and then the remaining 14 ships and small craft sank outright or soon after Test ‘Baker’ on July 25. These ships included the ‘Baker’ bomb-carrying vessel, LSM-60, which in essence disintegrated when the bomb detonated inside a caisson suspended 90 feet (29 m) beneath it. The ‘Baker’ detonation generated a highly radioactive plume of blast-ejected seabed sediment and pulverized coral, as well as seawater that encompassed many of the target ships. Ionized seawater turned to steam and enveloped the ships, followed by a series of blast waves that washed radioactive seawater over the fleet. The result was a highly degraded lagoon filled with ships contaminated to varying degrees with radiation. This made it impossible for support ships to immediately return to the lagoon and for crews to board the target fleet. USS Saratoga and the ex- Japanese battleship Nagato, while damaged, remained afloat and slowly sank, with Nagato sinking 4 days after the blast. In order to retrieve test instruments and data from the target ships, the Navy instituted a program to decontaminate the fleet. Using crews from the target ships, now ‘‘homeless’’ and on other vessels, the Navy first washed down ships with fire hoses and fire-fighting foam before reboarding them to scrub off fallout. Radiological safety monitors equipped with dosimeters accompanied crews for stays that, at first, were measured in minutes & James P. Delgado james.delgado@noaa.gov 1 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Silver Spring, MD, USA 123 J Mari Arch (2016) 11:25–31 DOI 10.1007/s11457-016-9154-7