Customer Reviews

Ghost Fleet: The Sunken Ships of Bikini Atoll

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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".

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.

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.

I only know of James P. Delgado through his work. He has a very high reputation in the field of marine archaeology and his list of credits is impressive by any standards. As with his other works, you just know the information contained within this book is something on which you can rely.

The wrecks of Bikini Atoll are legendary amongst scuba divers the world over - including a great many who will never have the opportunity to visit them. Naturally, there are several works on the subject which contain varying degrees of accuracy. This is the only book about those wrecks, which include a Japanese battleship, an American battleship and an American aircraft carrier - all from WW2, to mention but three!, which I am happy to give the full 5 stars.

In July 1946, 242 vessels - including some of the greatest warships from WW2, were assembled at Bikini Atoll. The people of Bikini, by the way, were told the forthcoming experiments were "For the Good of mankind" and that they would get their islands back in 6 weeks time!!! But those are points for another day. Up to this moment in world history, there had only been 3 Atomic explosions. The first was a test to see if the device worked. The next two were then dropped on Japanese cities with devastating effects. The next were detonated on Bikini Atoll by an American nation which had no idea what it was doing at that time. Able was detonated at an altitude of about 500 feet and caused minimal damage. Baker was exploded underwater and caused such alarm that Charlie was cancelled. Nevertheless, the damage to the islands was done and many of the ships were sunk. Following further explosions, Bikini has remained uninhabitable.

Leaving aside the emotive issues of the use of a very small and unprotected nation by a world-power, the shipwrecks exist and, therefore, represent a place of ultimate pilgrimage for serious scuba divers from all over the world. When compared with other books on the subject, this one is easily the most complete.

NM

My Dad was there (USS Reclaimer) - swimming in the atoll the day after the blasts, cleaning refuged ships, etc. It's amazing he's still alive.

Nice photos; good summaries. This isn't a full-blown account of Operation CrossRoads but a nice summary of the ships. If you are interested in OC, this is a good book to have on your shelf.

Having lived in the Marshall islands and dove the wrecks at Bikini I appreciated the history, photos and accounts presented in this book. The author does a great job of research on the ships & the crews, but makes a laughable conclusion that racism was the primary goal when placing the ships in the target area with regards to the German cruiser Priz Eugen and the Captured Japanese vessels which mars this otherwise good historical account.

I found this book to be most interesting, with a very accessible writing style.