Plot summary
Book I: Bikini
Sorry Rinamu is a fourteen-old boy who lives on Bikini Atoll. He and the other natives live through World War II under constant threat by the Japanese soldiers occupying the island. However, American forces attack the island one day and defeat the Japanese soldiers, freeing the island. The American victors give some of the items from the Japanese base to the natives while keeping the military equipment such as weapons. Sorry receives a magazine and is amazed by the cities and things he sees inside. He later repairs the radio in the captured Japanese base and learns of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. World War II soon ends.
Book II: Crossroads
An American battleship, the USS Sumner, lands in the lagoon. A few days later, an American commander delivers the news to the natives that Bikini has been chosen as a site for Operation Crossroads, a series of nuclear tests, due to "ideal" conditions. He meets with the natives and asks them to relocate. Nine out of 11 alabs vote to move, with Sorry's uncle Abram and grandfather Jonjen casting dissenting votes. Despite their arguments that they should not submit to white men, the natives decide to relocate. The Americans tells the natives that the atoll will be returned in a few years, but Abram and Sorry believe that he is lying.
As scientists arrive on the atoll, it is being converted to a temporary military base. Abram comes up with a plan to stop the nuclear tests by sailing into the test area with a scarlet canoe, but he dies of a heart attack before he could carry out the plan. When Sorry decides that he should do it, the natives believe that he is insane. However, he is accompanied by Tara Malolo, a local teacher, and his maternal grandfather, Jonjen.
They paint a canoe bright red for visibility while the scientists prepare the aircraft Dave's Dream for the Able test.
Book III: The Bomb
Sorry, Tara and Jonjen carry out their plan, but the Dave's Dream crew fail to notice the canoe and drop the bomb. The three are killed in the blast.
Micronesians settled the Marshall Islands in the 2nd millennium BC, but there are no historical or oral records of that period. Over time, the Marshallese people learned to navigate over long ocean distances by canoe using traditional stick charts.
Bikini Atoll, sometimes known as Eschscholtz Atoll between the 1800s and 1946 is a coral reef in the Marshall Islands consisting of 23 islands surrounding a 229.4-square-mile (594.1 km2) central lagoon. After the Second World War, 167 of the Atoll's inhabitants were forcibly relocated in 1946, after which the islands and lagoon were the site of 23 nuclear tests by the United States until 1958. The Atoll is at the northern end of the Ralik Chain, approximately 530 miles (850 km) northwest of the capital Majuro.
Operation Crossroads was a pair of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. They were the first nuclear weapon tests since Trinity in July 1945, and the first detonations of nuclear devices since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. The purpose of the tests was to investigate the effect of nuclear weapons on warships.
Operation Castle was a United States series of high-yield (high-energy) nuclear tests by Joint Task Force 7 (JTF-7) at Bikini Atoll beginning in March 1954. It followed Operation Upshot–Knothole and preceded Operation Teapot.
Rear Admiral William Sterling "Deak" Parsons was an American naval officer who worked as an ordnance expert on the Manhattan Project during World War II. He is best known for being the weaponeer on the Enola Gay, the aircraft which dropped the Little Boy atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945. To avoid the possibility of a nuclear explosion if the aircraft crashed and burned on takeoff, he decided to arm the bomb in flight. While the aircraft was en route to Hiroshima, Parsons climbed into the cramped and dark bomb bay, and inserted the powder charge and detonator. He was awarded the Silver Star for his part in the mission.
Ebeye is the most populous island of Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, as well as the center for Marshallese culture in the Ralik Chain of the archipelago. Settled on 80 acres of land, it has a population of more than 15,000. Over 50% of the population is estimated to be under the age of 18.
Operation Sandstone was a series of nuclear weapon tests in 1948. It was the third series of American tests, following Trinity in 1945 and Crossroads in 1946, and preceding Ranger. Like the Crossroads tests, the Sandstone tests were carried out at the Pacific Proving Grounds, although at Enewetak Atoll rather than Bikini Atoll. They differed from Crossroads in that they were conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission, with the armed forces having only a supporting role. The purpose of the Sandstone tests was also different: they were primarily tests of new bomb designs rather than of the effects of nuclear weapons. Three tests were carried out in April and May 1948 by Joint Task Force 7, with a work force of 10,366 personnel, of whom 9,890 were military.
Rongelap AtollRONG-gə-lap is a coral atoll of 61 islands in the Pacific Ocean, and forms a legislative district of the Ralik Chain of the Marshall Islands. Its total land area is 8 square miles (21 km2). It encloses a lagoon with an area of 1,000 square miles (2,600 km2). It is historically notable for its close proximity to US hydrogen bomb tests in 1954, and was particularly devastated by fallout from the Castle Bravo test. The population asked the US to move them from Rongelap following the test due to high radiation levels with no success so they asked Greenpeace to help. The Rainbow Warrior made four trips moving the islanders, their possessions and their homes to Majeto 180kms away. However, according to the most recent census in 2011 it has begun to recover with about eighty people living on the atoll.
Castle Bravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as part of Operation Castle. Detonated on March 1, 1954, the device was the most powerful nuclear device detonated by the United States and its first lithium deuteride fueled thermonuclear weapon. Castle Bravo's yield was 15 megatonnes of TNT (63 PJ), 2.5 times the predicted 6 megatonnes of TNT (25 PJ), due to unforeseen additional reactions involving lithium-7, which led to the unexpected radioactive contamination of areas to the east of Bikini Atoll. At the time, it was the most powerful artificial explosion in history.
Rongerik Atoll or Rongdrik Atoll is a coral atoll of 17 islands in the Pacific Ocean, and is located in the Ralik Chain of the Marshall Islands, approximately 200 kilometers (120 mi) east of Bikini Atoll. Its total land area is only 1.68 square kilometers (0.65 sq mi), but it encloses a lagoon of 144 square kilometers (56 sq mi).
Kili Island or Kili Atoll is a small, 81 hectares island located in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. It is the temporary home of 548 inhabitants who are descended from islanders who originally lived on Bikini Atoll. They were relocated when they agreed to let the U.S. government temporarily use their home for nuclear testing in 1945. Kili Island became their home after two prior relocations failed. The island does not have a natural lagoon and cannot produce enough food to enable the islanders to be self-sufficient. It is part of the legislative district of the Ralik Chain of the Marshall Islands. The island is approximately 48 kilometers (30 mi) southwest of Jaluit. It is one of the smallest islands in the Marshall Islands.
Daigo Fukuryū Maru was a Japanese tuna fishing boat with a crew of 23 men which was contaminated by nuclear fallout from the United States Castle Bravo thermonuclear weapon test at Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954.
USS Sumner (AG-32/AGS-5) was a survey ship in the United States Navy. She was named in honor of Thomas Sumner. She was originally commissioned as a submarine tender as USS Bushnell (AS-2/AG-32), in honor of David Bushnell, the inventor of the first American submarine.
The Pacific Proving Grounds was the name given by the United States government to a number of sites in the Marshall Islands and a few other sites in the Pacific Ocean at which it conducted nuclear testing between 1946 and 1962. The U.S. tested a nuclear weapon on Bikini Atoll on June 30, 1946. This was followed by Baker on July 24, 1946.
USS Carlisle (APA-69) was a Gilliam-class attack transport that served with the United States Navy from 1944 to 1946. She was sunk as a target ship during Operation Crossroads in July 1946.
USS LSM-60 was a World War II era landing ship, medium (LSM) amphibious assault ship of the United States Navy. It was notable for being used as the float to suspend a fission bomb underwater during the Operation Crossroads BAKER test, becoming the first naval vessel to deploy a nuclear weapon.
Radio Bikini is a 1988 American documentary film directed by Robert Stone. It was nominated for an Academy Award in 1988 for Best Documentary Feature. It was later aired on the PBS series The American Experience.
The application of nuclear technology, both as a source of energy and as an instrument of war, has been controversial.
Nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll consisted of the detonation of 24 nuclear weapons by the United States between 1946 and 1958 on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Tests occurred at 7 test sites on the reef itself, on the sea, in the air, and underwater. The test weapons produced a combined fission yield of 42.2 Mt of TNT in explosive power.
Naval Base Kwajalein was United States Navy base built on Kwajalein Atoll, in the Marshall Islands to support the World War II efforts in the Pacific War. The base was built after the Battle of Kwajalein ended 3 February 1944. The US Navy built airfields, a seaport and a craft repair depot on the captured islands. The base was part of the vast Naval Base Marshall Islands.
