ATTACHMENT 8: EXCERPTS FROM "HISTORY OF AIR FORCE ATOMIC CLOUD SAMPLING", JANUARY 1963 SECRET AFSC HISTORICAL PUBLICATION SERIES 61-142-1 GIF HISTORY OF AIR FORCE ATOMIC CLOUD SAMPLING NARRATIVE JANUARY 1963 DECLASSIFIED BY ______________________ GIF SIGNATURE ____________________________ EXCLUDED FROM AUTOMATIC REGRADING, DOD DIR 5200.10 DOES NOT APPLY SWEH-2-0034 SECRET RESTRICTED DATA ATOMIC ENERGY ACT ILLEGIBLE 1954 On 15 May 1948, ZEBRA Shot was detonated and Colonel Fackler took off in his WB-29. The mission was about three hours old when the plane approached the radioactive cloud, then made a climbing turn to the left. The sides of the cloud were irregular and, in the turn, the WB-29 inadvertently penetrated a small "finger" projection of the cloud. "No one keeled over dead and no one got sick," Colonel Fackler commented. "In fact, there seemed to be no undue alarm among the crew members." The WB-29 continued its mission for approximately 40 more minutes before the Rad-Safe monitor in the nose of the aircraft suggested that the aircraft return. On the way back to Eniwetok, Colonel Fackler flew the aircraft through several rain squalls as a precautionary device. This decreased the radiation readings on the exterior of the aircraft and, apparently reduced the sample gathered on the filter papers. Following the mission, Colonel Fackler discussed the experiment with Colonel Cody, assistant rad-safe officer for the operation. This incident, plus the film badge experiments he had conducted, gave Colonel Cody the idea that manned sampler aircraft, operating several hours after a nuclear detonation, might possibly obtain samples much more efficiently than measures used heretofore. With drones, the "beeper" pilot aimed the aircraft toward the atomic cloud and the sample was obtained by potluck. A manned sampler could be maneuvered while approaching the cloud, and during penetration so that the most likely parts of the cloud could be sampled. In this way a greater precision in sample size and location was rendered, allowing study of fractionation in greater detail among various portions of the cloud. SWEH-2-0034 the sampling unit was flight testing the aircraft and turned up a multitude of minor discrepancies but these were hunted down and corrected. The prototype sampler cost $22,760 to modify while each of the other 15 aircraft cost $19,260.6 Concurrently, the control aircraft were modified and sent to Wright Air Development Center for flight testing and from there to Walker Air Force Base, New Mexico, early in August 1952.7 Training For Sample Pilots On 2 March 1952, Dr. Plank visited the Special Weapons Command when plans were drawn up for training the F-84G pilots to sample atomic clouds. Also, a letter from Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory formally requested that the Task Group 132.4 sampler pilots be allowed to participate in TUMBLER/SNAFFER and the Center approved the program on 26 March 1952.8 During one of his visits, Dr. Flank explained the reasons and theories behind cloud sampling. The Strategic Air Command pilots picked to fly the F- 84G sampler aircraft were pleased to learn that they were doing something useful, "...not serving as guinea-pigs as they seriously believed when first called upon to do the sampling."9 In late March and early April 1952, the F-84G pilots passed through Kirtland for a short period of training in theory of radiation and in the use of radial instruments. Afterwards, in groups of five, they took additional training at Indian Springs Air Force Base where, as noted previously, they penetrated atomic clouds during the TUMBLER/SNAPPER detonations. To avoid excessive radiation which might inhibit sampling SWEH-2-0034 during Operation IVY, they were restricted to 0.1 roentgen exposure. Each group of five pilots remained at Indian Springs for one week in all and continued their studies on radiation and radial instruments. In addition, ten maintenance personnel accompanied the pilots.10 After completing this training, the 8th Air Force outlined sixteen training missions this training, the 8th Air Force outlined sixteen training missions for the sampler pilots, emphasizing navigational flights of about 2,000 miles distance, rendezvous with tanker aircraft both by day and by night, weather penetration flights and flight formation drills.11 Finally, 13 August 1952, the sampler aircraft took off from Bergstrom Air Force Base and ran through a complete simulated mission. It flew to the control B-29 aircraft, then to the B-36 sampler controller, simulated sampling missions, then returned to the B-29. Pilots would complete the in-flight refueling exercising twice during a mission. All the F-84G samplers participated in the drill, along with three control aircraft, and ten KB-29 tankers.12 Training ended early in September and on 4 September, the 16 sampler aircraft took off from Bergstrom Air Force Base and flew to the Naval Air Station at San Diego, California. Enroute they rendezvoused with tanker aircraft and refueled. On the West Coast, the samplers reviewed protective spray, were loaded aboard the aircraft carrier USS Randova, and sailed for the Pacific Proving Grounds, arriving at ILLEGIBLE on 30 September 1952.13 The Pacific Command had turned down proposals for flying to the test site, because it would cost too much to station picket ships along the route to rescue pilots should be of the jets be forced down.14 SWEH-2-0034 of evaluation of meters which were used to determine the actual radiation hazard to aircraft which penetrated a nuclear cloud. It was hoped, project personnel would be able to define exactly what dangers existed for crewmen working around a contaminated aircraft. Colonel Ernest A. Pinson and Captain Paul M. Crumley, project officers from the Research Directorate, planned to survey the gamma intensities from various parts of the aircraft and then compare the results with a survey of the contact intensities of beta plus gamma rays from mixed fission products distribution on the same section. From these studies they could determine accuracy of existing meters. Their instruments measured total dose radiation, depth, and rate.13 Aircraft usually were on the runway at Indian Springs Air Force Base within 15 minutes of the time they penetrated the cloud and the crew immediately began two hours intensive examination on the airplane and continued surveys for 24 hours. First inspections were accomplished with various ionization chamber-type meters with readings taken from one-fourth inch from the plane's surface, from three inches, one foot and, finally three feet. After meter inspection, personnel went over the same area with photographic film, film packets, which came into direct contact with the areas that contained particles of radioactive material, the packets being held in place by masking tape for the required exposure time. To record the general intensity of the area, the localized "hot spots" caused overexposure areas on the file. A second film exposure of much shorter duration followed for more accurate recordings of these spots. Through these methods the Research Directorate crews obtained successful radiation dose readings.14 In other tests, swatches of glove material, with film strips, were exposed to contaminated surfaces. Also, to register radiat intensities received by the hands, personnel wore gloves with firm strips inside and out. Yet another test, in which individuals rubbed their bars hands over contaminated areas, produced readings 30 per cent of the intensity found on the contaminated surfaces.15 Altogether, the Center's survey group studied 17 airplanes with contamination readings that ranged from a density of 1 roentgen up to 14 roentgens. Five members of the survey team took part in all of the 17 surveys and no team member absorbed more radiation than the Atomic Energy Commission's tolerance limit of 3.9 roentgens.16 One phase of this study caught the attention of newspapers. To get information from an atomic cloud more quickly than that obtained by sampler aircraft, Research Directorate officers used several T-33 jet trainers and flew into the cloud much earlier.17 One newspaper reported, "A group of dare devil Air Force scientists are making flights through the boiling reddish-brown atomic cloud in the interest of radiation research. . ."18 An Albuquerque, New Mexico, newspaper ran the following headlines: "Inside of A-Cloud Colored Brick Red, Kirtland Scientists, Pilots Report."19 However, the film badge experiments fascinated reporters. The Las Vegas, Nevada, Review-Journal headlined a long story about the project: "Gulp Film Badges to Check Radiation." The newspaper reported that Captain Charles S. Oldfields, Development Directorate, and Colonel Pinson swallowed some film badges and attached others to their clothing while flying through a nuclear cloud. After the mission the internal SWEH-2-0034 aircraft and none could be expected before December. Such delays in delivery dangerously shortened the time available for training. Late in November, Colonel John S. Samuel, Task Group Commander, personally visited Warner-Robins and managed to get two of the aircraft released immediately, a third was released that same month, and a fourth in December. Crew training continued through a successful conclusion by applying round-the- clock schedules. The remaining two B-57D aircraft arrived at Kirtland in January 1956.6 A major assignment for the 4926th Test Squadron during REDWING was to determine the effects of high yield, nuclear clouds on various types of aircraft, preferably from 30 to 150 minutes after detonation. Previously, data had been inconsistent, therefore, investigations of early penetrations would be pursued cautiously in face of unknown quantities or radiation and turbulence.7 Strategic Air Command leaders requested data on blast and radiation levels in nuclear clouds from 30,000 to 50,000-foot altitudes but could offer neither the airframes nor the crews. Tactical Air Command was requested to assist and initially agreed to accomplish the required twenty penetrations, four for each major detonation.8 In September, Headquarters, United States Air Force, tried to obtain a commitment from the Tactical Air Command for six aircraft for three and one-half months, with crews and maintenance personnel without hindrances to its combat readiness program. Tactical Air Command agreed, formally, to furnish three such aircraft and crews, but only for three months. REDWING leaders could not accomplish the sampling mission on that basis so bargained for SWEH-2-0034 The Air Force conducted several such studies in order to formulate standard operating procedures for the 4926th plots and maintenance crews. Probably the most significant was that directed by Colonel Ernest A. Pinson and published by the Special Weapons Center in June 1956.2 The report analyzed radiation dosages received while passing through the visible cloud and those received subsequent to exit and returning to home base. Evaluations were rendered for T-33, F-84, B-36, and B-57 aircraft. Project officers found the contamination to be higher for fighter than for bomber aircraft, unclean aircraft collected more radiation than clean. Grease spots collected more than 100 times as much contamination in passage through a radioactive cloud as a clean surface of equal area. Colonel Pinson was able to compose an equation showing radiation dose received by aircrews with the following known factors: penetration time in minutes after detonation, aircraft landing time in minutes after detonation, yield in megatons, contamination factor in reciprocal minutes, and aircraft speed relative to cloud in kilofeet per minute. However, Air Force officials believed the equation accurate within plus or minus 65 per cent for nominal yield bombs. A scarcity of information on the dimensions of and radiation intensity in clouds from megaton devices at operational altitudes for times up to one hour after detonation made "the prediction of aircrew radiation doses in transit through such clouds questionable."3 The enforcement of radiological safety measures, however, was a continuing problem, with outright rebellion by Air Force operational leaders, threatened on at least one occasion. They argued that no series mishaps had SWEH-2-0034 occurred and that application of accepted radiological safety measures unnecessarily upped the requirements for manpower, lessened the readiness of crews and aircraft for test and that the entire decontamination program was more than actually required to insure safety.4 Officials of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory took exceptions to Colonel William B. Kieffer's proposed changes to their equally cautions safety procedures, and resulting correspondence recorded a thorough disagreement and conflict between the nuclear scientists and operational people. In early March, 1957, Harold Plank wrote:5 "For workers who are occupationally exposed on a year-round basis, it is expected that the total non-medical exposure to gamma radiation will be limited to five roentgens per year with a general requirement that the exposure up to the age of 30 years be limited to fifty roentgens and that no more than fifty roentgens be received in each subsequent decade. It is understood that these restrictions are motivated by concern for the genetic effects of radiation throughout the population at large rather than by considerations of effects on the health of the exposed individual." He then laid dow the limitations for the then planned tests, PILGRIM, TRUMPET, and HARDTACK. We would like to propose that the sampling pilots for PILGRIM be restricted to 3.9 (plus or minus 10 per cent) roentgens but that, whenever possible, the actual exposures be limited to 2.4 roentgens. A prudent alternative which would minimize the pilots required for PILGRIM, would be to observe an actual limit of 3.9 roentgens of PILGRIM, bring these persons to a yearly total of five roentgens during TRUMPET, and meet the balance of the TRUMPET requirements with new pilots. Each of the new pilots would be allowed five roentgens. The number of new pilots needed might be SWEH-2-0034 based also upon the augmentation which may be required for HARDTACK, so that at the end of TRUMPET you would have a fully trained complement for that sampling mission. If we observe prudent limits of exposure during 1957, I believe that we would be justified in requesting the 'ten roentgens permissible -- twenty roentgens emergency' exposure ordinarily required by a series of high field detonations at the Pacific Proving Ground. But somewhat later, on 21 March 1957, Colonel Kieffer, then Deputy Commander for the Special Weapons Center, took exception of the guide lines laid down by Dr. Plank: Studies conducted on Operation TEAPOT and REDWING, however indicate that the benefits obtained from decontamination are not worth the effort and material expended. Over 95 per cent of the pilot dosage is accumulated while sampling and during the return flight. As far as total pilot exposure is concerned, the radiation intensity in the cockpit as a result of contamination accumulated on previous events is negligible. Moreover, 50 per cent or more of the cockpit intensity is contributed from the contaminated engines in the F-84G and 25 per cent or more from the engines on the B-57. Jet engines cannot be decontaminated in the field. Since a minor portion of the maintenance is on or near the engine -- which cannot be decontaminated -- it would appear that the effectiveness of decontaminated in reducing exposure to maintenance personnel is limited. At TEAPOT the average accumulated does to maintenance personnel was less than 1 r. The maximum individual dose was approximately 1500 mr. If a reduced decontamination effort doubled this average dosage, the 300 m/r or 3.0 r test limit would still be met. The figures shown on the Aircraft Decay and Decontamination Chart indicate that aircrews would receive an incremental dose of less than 5 per cent if decontamination were not performed. The above average was not the first, nor the last, concerning reduction of safety measures. On 29 July 1954, Colonel Karl H. Houston, Acting Deputy Chief of Staff for Research and Development, suggested that the SWEH-2-0034