Test Baker
July 25, 1946: The U.S. conducts nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll as part of Operation Crossroads.
Two separate bombs were detonated as part of the United States’ experiment to determine how nuclear weapons might affect ships and naval equipment. These two tests, called Able and Baker, were the fourth and fifth nuclear detonations ever conducted, after Trinity and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Prior to the tests, the residents of Bikini Atoll were evacuated off the islands; decades later in the 1970s, some of the original Bikini families were to return, but they would once again be evacuated because of lingering radioactivity. Around 100 vessels (mostly old or surplus American ships and some captured Axis ships) were assembled in the lagoon, some containing live animals and insects. On July 25, the Baker test was conducted. The device was detonated 90 feet underwater (versus Able, which had been dropped from a B-29) and sunk nine vessels, including the 26,000 ton battleship USS Arkansas and the even larger aircraft carrier USS Saratoga. Nearly all of the test animals - mostly pigs and rats - died in the blast.
Later that year, a French fashion designer named his new two-piece swimsuit after the atoll where the tests took place.