Operation Redwing Nuclear Tests 1956 Joint Task Force 7; Bikini Atoll, Enewetak Atoll

more at http://quickfound.net/

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Redwing

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Operation Redwing was a United States series of 17 nuclear test detonations from May to July 1956. They were conducted at Bikini and Enewetak atolls by Joint Task Force 7 (JTF7). The entire operation followed Project 56 and preceded Project 57. The primary intention was to test new, second-generation thermonuclear weapons. Also tested were fission devices intended to be used as primaries for thermonuclear weapons, and small tactical weapons for air defense. Redwing demonstrated the first United States airdrop of a deliverable hydrogen bomb during test Cherokee. Because the yields for many tests at Operation Castle in 1954 were dramatically higher than predictions, Redwing was conducted using an "energy budget": There were limits to the total amount of energy released, and the amount of fission yield was also strictly controlled. Fission, primarily "fast" fission of the natural uranium tamper surrounding the fusion capsule, greatly increases the yield of thermonuclear devices, and constitutes the great majority of the fallout, as nuclear fusion is a relatively clean reaction.

All shots were named after various Native American tribes...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_Atoll

Bikini Atoll (/ˈbɪkɪˌniː/ or /bɪˈkiːni/; Marshallese: 'Pikinni', [pʲi͡ɯɡɯ͡inʲːi], meaning "coconut place"), sometimes known as Eschscholtz Atoll between the 1800s and 1946 (see Etymology section below for history and orthography of the endonym), is a coral reef in the Marshall Islands consisting of 23 islands surrounding a 229.4-square-mile (594.1 km2) central lagoon. The atoll's inhabitants were relocated in 1946, after which the islands and lagoon were the site of 23 nuclear tests by the United States until 1958.

The atoll is at the northern end of the Ralik Chain, approximately 850 kilometres (530 mi) northwest of the capital Majuro. Three families were resettled on Bikini island in 1970, totaling about 100 residents. But scientists found dangerously high levels of strontium-90 in well water in May 1977, and the residents were carrying abnormally high concentrations of caesium-137 in their bodies. They were removed in 1980. The atoll is occasionally visited today by divers and a few scientists, and is occupied by a handful of caretakers...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enewetak_Atoll

Enewetak Atoll (/ɛˈniːwəˌtɔːk, ˌɛnɪˈwiːtɔːk/;[2] also spelled Eniwetok Atoll or sometimes Eniewetok; Marshallese: Ānewetak, [ænʲe.ɔ͡ɛ.dˠɑk], or Āne-wātak, [ænʲe.-ɒ͡æ.dˠɑk) is a large coral atoll of 40 islands in the Pacific Ocean and with its 664 people (as of 2011) forms a legislative district of the Ralik Chain of the Marshall Islands. With a land area total less than 5.85 square kilometres (2.26 sq mi)[1], it is no higher than 5 meters and surrounds a deep central lagoon, 80 kilometres (50 mi) in circumference. It is the second-westernmost atoll of the Ralik Chain and is 305 kilometres (190 mi) west from Bikini Atoll.

It was held by the Japanese from 1914 until its capture by the United States in February 1944, during World War II. Nuclear testing by the US totaling more than 30 megatons of TNT took place during the cold war; in 1977–1980, a concrete dome (the Runit Dome) was built on Runit Island to deposit radioactive soil and debris.

The Runit Dome is deteriorating and could be breached by a typhoon, though the sediments in the lagoon are even more radioactive than those which are contained...