[CPEO-MEF] FUEL, SHIPS, GLOBAL: "U.S. Navy Salvors Remove Oil from A-Bomb Test Ship"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

U.S. Navy Salvors Remove Oil from A-Bomb Test Ship

Maritime Executive
September 19, 2018

The U.S. Navy's Office of the Supervisor of Salvage is leading an effort to remove fuel oil from the sunken heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, a WWII war prize that was used in the American atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. 

The Prinz Eugen was one of five Admiral Hipper-class cruisers built for Nazi Germany by the Germaniawerft yard in Kiel. She participated in the attack on HMS Hood in May 1941, but she spent much of the rest of the war undergoing repairs. After WWII drew to a close, she became an American war prize, and the U.S. Navy assigned her to become a test target for the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests.

Prinz Eugen stayed afloat through both of Operation Crossroads' nuclear blasts, despite her anchorage at a distance of just 1,200 yards from ground zero. The air burst shot, Test Able, inflicted little visible damage. The subsurface shot, Test Baker, caused leaks that would eventually sink her. Like most of the other vessels anchored at Bikini Atoll that summer, Prinz Eugen was left with irremediable radioactive contamination, making repairs or scrapping impossible. This invisible threat to sailors' health was serious enough that the Navy canceled its plans for a third test. 

…

For the entire article, see
https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/u-s-navy-salvors-remove-oil-from-a-bomb-test-ship

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650/961-8918 
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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