Remnants of the war

On my first trip to Enewetak in 1975, there were still a few remnants of World War II visible, although most of them had been removed during the buildup for the nuclear test program. The photo below taken in 1968 by Leonard Johnson diagrams the capture of Enewetak (then called Eniwetok) by US forces in 1944.

Most of the remnants of war were removed during the radiological cleanup. The ship below that was visible aground off Enewetak Island on my 1975 visit was in much worse shape when I was there in 1978, and was completely gone by 1981. The wreck had been blasted apart during the cleanup and most of the fragments removed.

In 1975:

and 1978:

and back to 1975.

There were a few submerged wrecks, although we saw nothing like the number of shipswrecks known from Kwajalein. But at the time, we did not look. It might be interesting sometime to do a search for wrecks in the atoll. Right off the lagoon slope near the lab was an old barge, that at least had its own "facilities."

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