Ghost Fleet: The Sunken Ships of Bikini Atoll [Paperback]

James P. Delgado (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1999

In July 1946 a fleet of 242 ships, among them some of the most famous of World War II, assembled within the lagoon of Bikini Atoll, 4,500 miles from San Francisco. There, in a massive military effort dubbed Operation Crossroads, thousands of scientists and U.S. military personnel gathered to assess the atomic bomb's effect on warships in the world's first nuclear weapons tests.

Four decades later, in 1989, a highly trained team of underwater archaeologists returned to Bikini to evalu-ate the ships as historic and archaeological sites and as potential diving attractions. In Ghost Fleet, author James Delgado, a member of that team, offers a fascinating account of Operation Crossroads and the forgotten remains that have turned Bikini's lagoon into a vast underwater ghost town.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

In 1946, the United States began a series of nuclear tests on Bikini Atoll to determine the impact of atomic bombs on armored naval ships. Amid much fanfare, the military assembled a fleet of surplus ships from World War II, carefully mooring them in the lagoon, and exploded nuclear bombs both in the air and under the water. Delgado, a noted marine archaeologist with the National Park Service, visited Bikini in the late 1980s to explore and document the condition of the sunken ships. His work is more than an archaeological study; it is the history of the nuclear age. Meticulously researched, it chronicles the development of the bomb, its deployment in Japan, the preparations for the tests, the attempted clean-up afterward, and the beginning of the Cold War. Many of the photographs and diagrams were first published by the National Park Service in a study entitled The Archaeology of the Atomic Bomb (1991). A good purchase for public and academic libraries.?John Kenny, San Francisco P.L.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 204 pages
• Publisher: University of Hawaii Press (1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0824818687
• ISBN-13: 978-0824818685
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 8.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,195,229 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #20 in Books > History > Australia & Oceania > Marshall Islands

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and Absorbing, December 26, 2001

By 

Erik J. Fortmeyer "beerisjoy" (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ghost Fleet: The Sunken Ships of Bikini Atoll (Paperback)

This is a great mini-coffee table book (get the hardcover if you REALLY dig this stuff!) offering hours of information and photos of the famous atomic bomb tests on naval ships at Bikini Atoll. The 190 page book is broken into nine chapters and has excellent notes on sources. Background information covers the first half of the book while the second is focused on recent dives to many of the famous and lesser known ships that were sunk here. The writing is very informative and the photographs are absolutely haunting, particularly the ones of the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga! Several color photos are included in the center. The author pushes no agenda in this book. He merely reports the facts available both "good and bad".

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wreck-Diving Nirvana, February 15, 2001

By 

Nagato (Denver, Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ghost Fleet: The Sunken Ships of Bikini Atoll (Paperback)

James Delgado does a very good job of reviewing the sunken ships of Bikini Atoll and telling the story of the 1946 atomic bomb tests. I read this book after diving at Bikini Atoll and found it to be a good treatment of a topic that has received too little attention. As far as wreck diving goes, Bikini Atoll is the best in the world, and my only disappointment with this book is that it does not fill the need for a coffee-table-style photographic survey of the incredible shipwrecks at Bikini. That being said, Delgado's book is a nice compromise between such a coffee table book and the more comprehensive historical treatment in Jonathan Weisgall's superb book on Bikini Atoll.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating look into the bomb testing and aftermath, July 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Ghost Fleet: The Sunken Ships of Bikini Atoll (Paperback)

This book presents an illuminating look at the nuclear testing and it's aftermath. The cavalier attitude towards radiation is pretty amazing. There are also many fine pictures of the wrecks underwater, including some shots of the world's only exisiting diveable aircraft carrier.