Show newsmen admit apprehension of A bomb mission emission by WALTER A SHEAD correspondent ABOARD appalachian via navy radio civil and military welcoming committees out ot of the way with the beauty and color of the paradise of the pacific a pleasant memory interlude in the midst of this serious military experiment peri ment the big apple today has her nose pointed westward on n the second leg of our hop toward bikini atoll and the atomic bomb test the results of which may revolutionize naval tactics the waters ot of the marshall islands are not new to the appalachian and the members ot of her crew who first took her into combat duty in these very waters the conquest and capture ot of which is our next port of call she is a sturdy ship and bears few scars of 0 her tour of duty in the war in the pacific in the marshalls marchalls Mar the Admiral tys the solomons at leyte the mariakas marianas Mari anas at guam and other action since ae pearl rl harbor on this tour she is the press ship of adm aan W H P blan dys task force and aboard are P A mob A awoke JA I 1 TO DROP bombe BOMB major harold wood age 30 ot of Borden bordentown town N J responsible for bullseye picked newspaper men and representatives senta tives of the other media suc such h as news reels radio technical magazines a ines television and others although th ough most ot of them are on other ships of the group such as the pa panamint and the blue ridge there la s a sprinkling of scientists aboard and a sort of friendly ribbing going on constantly between the lay or mine run members of the press and these scientific writers many of whom are members 1 I am a frightened man club and predict dire results and dangers to personnel of this task force when the bomb burst urs sc scheduled u e july y 1 takes place in spite of their fan poking the newspaper men generally privately admit they feel some apprehension and beneath the raillery there is a feeling of tenseness among many of us which increases daily the trip thus far from navy pier in oakland to honolulu where our two day stay was all too short has been like a pleasure cruise but now we are get aag ting down to the serious part of this most stupendous military experiment in history the information officers aboard ship offer every facility and we are scheduled for a series of roundtable conferences to 0 orientate rien tate us to the main objectives objective object iv e s of operations erat ions crossroads one of the most interest interesting ing phases of this operation is the time element fourteen different time zones are involved in the operation by virtue of the location of bikini west of the international date line for instance if the first atomic bomb is dropped at 10 a m monday july 1 it will be 5 p m sunday june 30 in chicago As this is written out of pearl harbor we still have some 2200 miles of trackless blue water to traverse at a speed of approximately 11 knots or about 13 miles an hour before we reach where we will spend a day viewing the elaborate installations which have been set up in quarters laboratories air facilities as a base for the army air corps which will drop the bomb and the men of the joint task force the logistics and the planning which have gone into this his operation will rival those in the invasion of normandy and scientists in and out of the navy have ready for installation the most elaborate measuring devices to meter actual effects of the explosion on the target array of combat and other ships army and navy material live animals tethered aboard some ships and ordnance for army navy and air of all descriptions in addition recording devices specially constructed cameras tor for television radar controlled drone planes which will fly through the atomic cloud at varying heights will bring back samples of the radio active materials and vapor to be rushed to the laboratories for test it is this radio activity tor for the exploded atoms which may be used for the benefit of mankind in peacetime pursuits As a matter of fact the manhattan district is now releasing or has released small portions of radio activated substances to universities and laboratories |