In Baker on July 25, the weapon was suspended beneath landing craft LSM-60 anchored in the midst of the target fleet. Baker was detonated 90 feet (27 m) underwater, halfway to the bottom in water 180 feet (54 m) deep. How/Mike Hour was 0835.[19] No identifiable part of LSM-60 was ever found; it was presumably vaporized by the nuclear fireball. Ten ships were sunk, including the German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, which sank in December, five months after the test, because radioactivity prevented repairs to a leak in the hull.
Photographs of Baker are unique among nuclear detonation pictures. The blinding flash that usually obscures the target area took place underwater and was barely seen. The clear image of ships in the foreground and background gives a sense of scale. The large Wilson cloud and the vertical water column are distinctive Baker shot features, making the pictures easily identifiable. The most notable picture shows a mark where the 27,000 ton battleship Arkansas was.[54]
As with Able, any ships that remained afloat within 1,000 yards of the detonation were seriously damaged, but this time the damage came from below, from water pressure rather than air pressure. The greatest difference between the two shots, however, was the radioactive contamination of all the target ships by Baker. Regardless of the degree of damage, only nine surviving Baker target ships were eventually decontaminated and sold for scrap. The rest were sunk at sea after decontamination efforts failed.[55]
...On August 11, 1947, Life Magazine summarized the report in a 14-page article with 33 pictures. The article stated, "If all the ships at Bikini had been fully manned, the Baker Day bomb would have killed 35,000 crewmen. If such a bomb were dropped below New York's Battery in a stiff south wind, 2 million people would die."[119] Although it was accurately written, a casual reader of the article may have confused the grisly effects of Able's transitory fireball radiation on the close-in test animals with the equally deadly but more widespread and persistent contamination from Baker's base surge. Aside from the Life article, the report received little public attention.
The contamination problem was not widely appreciated by the general public until 1948, when No Place to Hide, a best-selling book by David Bradley, M.D., was serialized in the Atlantic Monthly, condensed by the Reader's Digest, and selected by the Book of the Month Club.[120] In his preface, Bradley, a key member of the Radiological Safety Section at Bikini known as the "Geiger men," asserted that "the accounts of the actual explosions, however well intended, were liberally seasoned with fantasy and superstition, and the results of the tests have remained buried in the vaults of military security."[121] His description of the Baker test and its aftermath brought to world attention the problem of radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons.
...Following test Baker decontamination problems, the United States Navy equipped newly constructed ships with a CounterMeasure WashDown System (CMWDS) of piping and nozzles to cover exterior surfaces of the ship with a spray of salt water from the firefighting system when nuclear attack appeared imminent. The film of flowing water would theoretically prevent contaminants from settling into cracks and crevices.[128]
...The Strait of Hormuz /hɔrˈmuːz/ Persian: تَنگِه هُرمُز‎ Tangeh-ye Hormoz), (Arabic: مَضيق هُرمُز‎ Maḍīq Hurmuz is a strait between the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf. It is the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean and is one of the world's most strategically important choke points. On the north coast is Iran, and on the south coast is the United Arab Emirates and Musandam, an exclave of Oman. At its narrowest, the strait is 21 nautical miles (39 km) wide.[1]
About 20% of the world's petroleum, and about 35% of the petroleum traded by sea, passes through the strait making it a highly important strategic location for international trade.[1]
