In what year was the first sub-surface atomic bomb detonated at Bikini Atoll?
Nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll Nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll The nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll program was a series of 23 nuclear devices detonated by the United States between 1946 and 1958 at seven test sites on the reef itself, on the sea, in the air and underwater. The test weapons produced a combined fission yield of 42.2 Mt of explosive power. The United States was engaged in a Cold War Nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union to build more advanced bombs from 1947 until 1991. The first series of tests over Bikini Atoll in July 1946 was code named Operation Crossroads. The
Nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll Enewetak Atoll and six at Bikini. The island residents who had been promised they would be able to return home to Bikini was thwarted indefinitely by the U.S. decision to resume nuclear testing at Bikini in 1954. During 1954, 1956, and 1958, twenty-one more nuclear bombs were detonated at Bikini, yielding a total of , equivalent to more than three thousand "Baker" bombs. Only one was an air burst, the 3.8 Mt Redwing "Cherokee" test. Air bursts distribute fallout in a large area, but surface bursts produce intense local fallout. These tests were followed by the 33-shot Hardtack tests which