Bikini Atoll: Shipwrecks of the Nuclear Tests

The Empire of Japan formally surrendered to the Allies on 2 September 1945, following the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.While the fighting had ended, a new weapon had been unleashed onto the world stage that nations rushed frantically to develop and master. The USA needed somewhere extremely remote to conduct its experimental nuclear weapons testing.They chose Bikini Atoll - a beautiful Pacific coral atoll in the Marshall Islands in the middle of the Pacific and perhaps the most remote group of islands on the planet.The initial nuclear experiments were assigned the codename Operation Crossroads.The 167 local islanders were moved out of their once tranquil tropical paradise whilst American, and captured German and Japanese, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and aircraft carriers were moved to the lagoon and moored strategically around the test area so that the effects of a nuclear blast on them could be studied.In total, the US conducted twenty-five