WORLD WAR II: OPERATION CROSSROADS. THE FIRST ATOMIC BOMB TESTS AT BIKINI ATOLL., THEODORE "DUTCH" VAN KIRK. 1921-2014.
Van Kirk's personal collection of 4 manuscript navigator logs, all detailing flights from Kwajalein army airforce base in the Marshall Islands to Bikini Atoll and back, and a collection of 14 USAAF flying charts, belonging to Theodore Van Kirk. Navigators Logs: 2 dated May 11 and July 1 1946; Aeronautical charts: dated March to September 1945.
THEODORE "DUTCH" VAN KIRK. 1921-2014. Van Kirk's personal collection of 4 manuscript navigator logs, all detailing flights from Kwajalein army airforce base in the Marshall Islands to Bikini Atoll and back, and a collection of 14 USAAF flying charts, belonging to Theodore Van Kirk. Navigators Logs: 2 dated May 11 and July 1 1946; Aeronautical charts: dated March to September 1945.
An important collection of memorabilia from "Dutch" Van Kirk's personal collection, comprising:
1. 4 Navigators logs on form 21A, all filled out and signed in pencil by "Dutch" Van Kirk with his serial number, detailing trips from Bucholz Army Airfield on Kwajalein Atoll to Bikini Atoll and back, 3 being practise runs but including the log of the flight on July 1 that dropped the first atomic bomb (airblast) on the test site of Bikini Atoll;
2. A carbon copy of a weather report Kwajalein to Bikini with diagrams of cloud cover, temperatures and wind speeds, and a second AAF Weather service Flight forecast Kwajalein to Johnston Hickam, both undated; with a Confidential "Notice to Airmen", carbon copy, and a Combined Aircraft weather report code sheet, all 4 signed in pencil by Van Kirk with his serial number, and contained in an AAF official green card Weather Flight Folder, also signed in pencil by Van Kirk.
3. Pacific Airways Plotting Chart, reproduced August 1945, covering the remote Pacific from Christmas Island to the Marshalls, and up to Hawai, including Bikini Atoll, with a military overprint in purple, marked "confidential"; and a USAAF special air navigation chart from California to Hawai, dated July 1945, with purple military overprint, marked "Restricted", both signed at lower right in pencil "Dutch Van Kirk" with his serial number.
4. A collection of 10 USAAF aeronautical charts of mainland USA, all early 1945, all signed "Dutch" Van Kirk, in pencil at lower right, and used by Van Kirk, 1945-46. They include 4 sheets covering parts of California and 6 of Texas, New Mexcico and other states.
Provenance: Theodore Van Kirk, gifted to Robert Krauss, Official Historian of 509th Composite Group.
A fine collection of logs and maps, all signed by the famous Enola Gay navigator Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk, the logs relating to his flights as part of Operation Crossroads, over Bikini Atoll in 1946, including his log for the flight on the first test, code named "Able", on July 1 that dropped the "Gilda" bomb. The maps include two related to his work on Crossroads, and 10 USAAF charts used by him in the USA 1945-46.
Operation Crossroads was the first series of air and sea-bed tested explosions of atomic bombs at the test site of Bikini Atoll, in the Marshall Islands. Van Kirk was the navigator on the B-29 aircraft for the first atomic bomb test on Bikini on July 1 1946, used to test the impact of the atomic bomb on naval hardware. The drop of "Gilda", the bomb exploding at 520 feet, comprising two detonations, each with a yield of 23 kt (96 TJ). The lagoon had been filled with defunct WW2 US and other ships, some ships populated with experimental tests, but unfortunately the bomb exploded half a mile away from its target position and only sank five of the ships in the lagoon, and the radioactivity created had subsided in 2 days. One wonders what role Dutch played in this mispositioning? On July 25th a second bomb "Baker" was detonated underwater at a depth of 90 ft and that caused much more destruction, sinking eight ships, and created a large condensation cloud and contaminated the ships with more radioactive water than was expected. Many of the surviving ships were too contaminated to be used again for testing and were sunk. The air-borne nuclear detonation raised the surface seawater temperature by 99,000 °F (55,000 °C), created blast waves with speeds of up to 26 ft/s, and shock and surface waves up to 98 ft high.
The Nuclear Age had truly begun.
After these two early tests in 1946, an International outcry forced the postponement of American tests at Bikini until the early 1950s.
Van Kirk retired from the USAAF in August 1946, a month after these flights with Operation Crossroads, and worked for the next 35 years with the Chemical Firm Dupont. The survival of this cache of manuscript logs is a rare opportunity to acquire material from Van Kirk's personal collection.
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Van Kirk's personal collection of 4 manuscript navigator logs, all detailing flights from Kwajalein army airforce base in the Marshall Islands to Bikini Atoll and back, and a collection of 14 USAAF flying charts, belonging to Theodore Van Kirk. Navigators Logs: 2 dated May 11 and July 1 1946; Aeronautical charts: dated March to September 1945.
THEODORE "DUTCH" VAN KIRK. 1921-2014. Van Kirk's personal collection of 4 manuscript navigator logs, all detailing flights from Kwajalein army airforce base in the Marshall Islands to Bikini Atoll and back, and a collection of 14 USAAF flying charts, belonging to Theodore Van Kirk. Navigators Logs: 2 dated May 11 and July 1 1946; Aeronautical charts: dated March to September 1945.
An important collection of memorabilia from "Dutch" Van Kirk's personal collection, comprising:
1. 4 Navigators logs on form 21A, all filled out and signed in pencil by "Dutch" Van Kirk with his serial number, detailing trips from Bucholz Army Airfield on Kwajalein Atoll to Bikini Atoll and back, 3 being practise runs but including the log of the flight on July 1 that dropped the first atomic bomb (airblast) on the test site of Bikini Atoll;
2. A carbon copy of a weather report Kwajalein to Bikini with diagrams of cloud cover, temperatures and wind speeds, and a second AAF Weather service Flight forecast Kwajalein to Johnston Hickam, both undated; with a Confidential "Notice to Airmen", carbon copy, and a Combined Aircraft weather report code sheet, all 4 signed in pencil by Van Kirk with his serial number, and contained in an AAF official green card Weather Flight Folder, also signed in pencil by Van Kirk.
3. Pacific Airways Plotting Chart, reproduced August 1945, covering the remote Pacific from Christmas Island to the Marshalls, and up to Hawai, including Bikini Atoll, with a military overprint in purple, marked "confidential"; and a USAAF special air navigation chart from California to Hawai, dated July 1945, with purple military overprint, marked "Restricted", both signed at lower right in pencil "Dutch Van Kirk" with his serial number.
4. A collection of 10 USAAF aeronautical charts of mainland USA, all early 1945, all signed "Dutch" Van Kirk, in pencil at lower right, and used by Van Kirk, 1945-46. They include 4 sheets covering parts of California and 6 of Texas, New Mexcico and other states.
Provenance: Theodore Van Kirk, gifted to Robert Krauss, Official Historian of 509th Composite Group.
A fine collection of logs and maps, all signed by the famous Enola Gay navigator Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk, the logs relating to his flights as part of Operation Crossroads, over Bikini Atoll in 1946, including his log for the flight on the first test, code named "Able", on July 1 that dropped the "Gilda" bomb. The maps include two related to his work on Crossroads, and 10 USAAF charts used by him in the USA 1945-46.
Operation Crossroads was the first series of air and sea-bed tested explosions of atomic bombs at the test site of Bikini Atoll, in the Marshall Islands. Van Kirk was the navigator on the B-29 aircraft for the first atomic bomb test on Bikini on July 1 1946, used to test the impact of the atomic bomb on naval hardware. The drop of "Gilda", the bomb exploding at 520 feet, comprising two detonations, each with a yield of 23 kt (96 TJ). The lagoon had been filled with defunct WW2 US and other ships, some ships populated with experimental tests, but unfortunately the bomb exploded half a mile away from its target position and only sank five of the ships in the lagoon, and the radioactivity created had subsided in 2 days. One wonders what role Dutch played in this mispositioning? On July 25th a second bomb "Baker" was detonated underwater at a depth of 90 ft and that caused much more destruction, sinking eight ships, and created a large condensation cloud and contaminated the ships with more radioactive water than was expected. Many of the surviving ships were too contaminated to be used again for testing and were sunk. The air-borne nuclear detonation raised the surface seawater temperature by 99,000 °F (55,000 °C), created blast waves with speeds of up to 26 ft/s, and shock and surface waves up to 98 ft high.
The Nuclear Age had truly begun.
After these two early tests in 1946, an International outcry forced the postponement of American tests at Bikini until the early 1950s.
Van Kirk retired from the USAAF in August 1946, a month after these flights with Operation Crossroads, and worked for the next 35 years with the Chemical Firm Dupont. The survival of this cache of manuscript logs is a rare opportunity to acquire material from Van Kirk's personal collection.
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