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Official film report on the Operation Greenhouse atomic tests at Eniwetok
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Official film report on the Operation Greenhouse atomic tests at Eniwetok

archives.govUnited States1951public
#desecretazione e archivi#guerra e crimini di guerra#filmato d'archivio#eniwetok atoll#los alamos#usa

The footage documents the preparations and infrastructure for Operation Greenhouse in 1951, showing the scientific community of Los Alamos and Eniwetok Atoll alongside technical gear and checkpoints.

This official film report documents activities carried out in the spring of 1951 for Operation Greenhouse at Eniwetok Atoll in the Central Pacific. The footage and narration detail the organization of Joint Task Force 3, comprising 8,500 personnel drawn from the Atomic Energy Commission, its contractors, educational and industrial laboratories, and the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Lieutenant General Elwood Quesada of the United States Air Force and Dr. Alvin C. Graves of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, serving as Deputy Commander and Scientific Director, are introduced. The visual sequence presents life and facilities in Los Alamos, the weapons-testing J Division operated for the AEC by the University of California, followed by aerial views of Eniwetok, control room switchboards, low-flying helicopters, tank silhouettes, security checkpoints, and countdown dials.

Running for 23 minutes, the material is hosted on Wikimedia Commons under the title Nuclear Test Film - Operation Greenhouse and belongs to the public domain, with no production entity or author declared. The footage shows the operational development taking place three years after Operation Sandstone in 1948 across the United States trust territory of Eniwetok Atoll.

Official administrative context for military support in these tests is preserved in Record Group 374 at the United States National Archives, covering the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (AFSWP). Placed under the National Military Establishment in 1947 and subsequently under the Department of Defense in 1949, the agency maintained records through the Weapons Effects Division Analysis Branch and Radiation Branch, compiling data on atomic weapons effects and radiological defense procedures from 1950 to 1953.

The film serves as primary visual evidence of the coordination among academic research, industrial contractors, and military forces during early Cold War nuclear tests, preserving technical procedures and site operations as they were executed in 1951.

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archives.gov

Nation

USA

Year

1951

Classification

public

Categories

declassified, History

Format

Direct Stream HD

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The 176 facts verified in the text
  1. [atto] Top of Page 374.2 General Records of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (AFSWP) 1947-55 History: For a history of the Manhattan Engineer District, See 77.11.
  2. [atto] With all other armed forces organizations, AFSWP subsumed under National Military Establishment (NME) by the National Security Act of 1947 (61 Stat. 495), July 26, 1947; subsequently under Department of Defense (DOD, formerly NME) by the National Security Act Amendments of 1949 (63 Stat. 578), August 10, 1949.
  3. [atto] DASA mission and functions confirmed by DOD Directive 5105.31, July 22, 1964.
  4. [atto] DASA abolished, effective November 24, 1971, by DOD Directive 5105.31, November 3, 1971, with functions transferred to Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA), established by same directive.
  5. [atto] DNA mission and functions updated by DOD Directive 5105.31, June 14, 1995.
  6. [atto] DNA redesignated Defense Special Weapons Agency (DSWA) without further change of mission or functions by Change 1 to DOD Directive 5105.31 (June 14, 1995), May 31, 1996.
  7. [atto] DSWA abolished, effective October 1, 1998, with functions transferred to newly established Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA).
  8. [atto] On-Site Inspection Agency (OSIA) established as a DOD agency by DOD Directive TS 5134.2, January 28, 1988, with mission to implement the on-site inspection provisions of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
  9. [atto] Abolished, effective October 1, 1998, with functions transferred to newly established DTRA.
  10. [atto] Defense Technology Security Administration (DTSA) established as a DOD field activity by DOD Directive 5105.51, May 10, 1985, with mission to implement DOD policy on the international transfer of defense-related technology, goods, services, and munitions.
  11. [atto] Top of Page 374.3 Records of AFSWP Headquarters Organizations 1943-73 Top of Page 374.3.1 Records of the Office of the Deputy Chief Textual Records: Correspondence, 1945-54, including some of predecessor Manhattan Engineer District (MED).
  12. [atto] Top of Page 374.3.2 Records of the Office of the Technical Director Textual Records: Records of the Armed Forces-Atomic Energy Commission Panel on Radiological Warfare and of the Ad Hoc Committee on Underwater Atomic Weapons Testing, 1947-54.
  13. [atto] Top of Page 374.3.3 Records of the Office of the Historian Textual Records: Reports (including some of predecessor MED) concerning the evaluation and analysis of research and development projects, 1943-48.
  14. [atto] Top of Page 374.3.4 Records of the Analysis Branch, Weapons Effects Division Textual Records: Special projects file, consisting of correspondence and other records relating to the collection of data on atomic weapons effects and the development of radiological defense procedures, 1950-53.
  15. [atto] Top of Page 374.3.5 Records of the Radiation Branch Textual Records: Logs and journals, 1947-54.
  16. [atto] Top of Page 374.3.6 Records of the Technical Library Branch Textual Records: Technical publications, 1946-50, 1955-73.
  17. [atto] Top of Page 374.3.7 Records of the Security Division Textual Records: Counterintelligence investigative file, 1947-52.
  18. [atto] Records relating to security clearances and the international exchange of information, 1952-54.
  19. [atto] Top of Page 374.3.8 Records of the Budget and Fiscal Division Textual Records: Correspondence relating to budget estimates and justifications, 1947-55.
  20. [atto] Top of Page 374.3.9 Records of the Manpower and Organization Branch, Plans Division Textual Records: Organizational planning records, 1952-55.
  21. [filmato, parlato] You are about to see the official film report of the test of atomic weapons at Eniwetok Atoll.
  22. [filmato, parlato] This test took place in the spring of 1951.
  23. [filmato, parlato] It was carried out by the 8,500 members of Joint Task Force 3.
  24. [filmato, parlato] Men drawn from the Atomic Energy Commission, its contractors, military, industrial, and educational laboratories, and from the Army, Navy, and Air Force.
  25. [filmato, parlato] Lieutenant General Elwood Quesada, United States Air Force.
  26. [filmato, parlato] Graves, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Deputy Commander Joint Task Force 3 and Scientific Director for the program.
  27. [filmato, parlato] During the tense days of World War II, an entire American city of men, women, and children was hidden behind a seemingly unimportant postal number, Box 1663.
  28. [filmato, parlato] Today, such secrecy is no longer possible.
  29. [filmato, parlato] Today, this city boldly and proudly parades the normal pattern of American living.
  30. [filmato, parlato] This now appears to be an average city of schools and playgrounds, of houses and apartments, a place to live where men and women can feel at home.
  31. [filmato, parlato] But for all of these things, this city is not an ordinary city.
  32. [filmato, parlato] This is the mile-high city of Los Alamos, the Atomic City.
  33. [filmato, parlato] This is a modern pueblo created by the people of the United States as a research and development center for atomic weapons.
  34. [filmato, parlato] This is still a city where citizens take for granted security fences, guards, passes, caution.
  35. [filmato, parlato] The proof testing of weapons, a routine practice by now, is the job of a busy section of the Los Alamos Laboratory called J Division.
  36. [filmato, parlato] With such a specialized division carrying on tests, the other parts of the big laboratory operated for the Atomic Energy Commission by the University of California can continue undisturbed in vital research and development work.
  37. [filmato, parlato] One of the proving grounds is an outdoor laboratory: Eniwetok Atoll in the Central Pacific.
  38. [filmato, parlato] This trust territory of the United States has been used before as a testing ground, for Operation Sandstone in 1948.
  39. [filmato, parlato] But three years have passed since Sandstone.
  40. [filmato, parlato] Three years to bring new and improved atomic weapons to this secluded equatorial land.
  41. [filmato, parlato] This land of spaced islands arranged like individual beads of a necklace, and the new test operation will be called by its code, Greenhouse.
  42. [filmato, parlato] But Greenhouse means more than just a proving ground, more than a group of scientists from Los Alamos.
  43. [filmato, parlato] Operation Greenhouse is big, big in logistics, big in the scope of its aims and purposes.
  44. [filmato, parlato] To meet this problem, a self-contained unit, a task force, is organized.
  45. [filmato, parlato] This is a four-part organization: Atomic Energy Commission, Army, Navy, and Air Force, working together under a unified command.
  46. [filmato, parlato] As for the larger scope of Greenhouse, it is a real challenge to include in a test all of the valuable experimentation that can come out of the detonation of atomic weapons.
  47. [filmato, parlato] The armed services, for instance, have a continuing need for information on the offensive and defensive effects of atomic blasts.
  48. [filmato, parlato] In these days of international tension, they need to know the physical results of atomic warfare.
  49. [filmato, parlato] Even though Los Alamos is the parent laboratory, so to speak, scientists and technicians from other government agencies, from American industry, colleges, universities, and other organizations throughout the country, men working in related fields, are asked to participate to help in instrumenting the operation.
  50. [filmato, parlato] Since Eniwetok is a distant and primitive area, men have to leave their stateside laboratories and homes for a period running into months.
  51. [filmato, parlato] Since 1943, when Los Alamos was established, men from this mesa have left the continental limits of the United States twice before to test the weapons they have created.
  52. [filmato, parlato] Now, the proving ground comes alive like a university campus when students return from the summer holidays.
  53. [filmato, parlato] Parry Island is home for Task Force Headquarters and for the scientific group.
  54. [filmato, parlato] Eniwetok Island is home base for the Army and Air Force.
  55. [filmato, parlato] The Navy stays aboard its ships anchored in the lagoon.
  56. [filmato, parlato] These are the dormitories of Eniwetok University.
  57. [filmato, parlato] Spread out and separated from the dorms by a safe distance are the laboratories, the individual test islands, seemingly like so many science buildings on college grounds.
  58. [filmato, parlato] The long-awaited forward area work begins.
  59. [filmato, parlato] Even in a world of tension, atomic energy is more than thunderous test detonations and calculated planned devastation.
  60. [filmato, parlato] We still have much to learn of our nuclear fuels, uranium and plutonium.
  61. [filmato, parlato] This is the precious stuff so valuable it makes sought-after gold seem like common scouring powder.
  62. [filmato, parlato] Whatever can be done to conserve it is to our national advantage.
  63. [filmato, parlato] To proof test weapons scientifically and accurately, it is necessary to know the behavior inside the weapon and also to know the outside behavior of the forces let loose, the effects of the weapon, the facts and figures on blast, heat, light, radiation.
  64. [filmato, parlato] Weapon designers go to great lengths to get this kind of information.
  65. [filmato, parlato] For example, to measure blast, instruments are suspended from these plastic balloons.
  66. [filmato, parlato] This gives a pressure reading in free air.
  67. [filmato, parlato] High-speed cameras capable of taking several million separate pictures per second are placed close to zero point.
  68. [filmato, parlato] They will record the story of nuclear forces from a vantage point where man himself dares not stand.
  69. [filmato, parlato] Radiation will be measured by devices on whose photographic emulsion will be indelibly imprinted the record of swift-moving invisible nuclear particles.
  70. [filmato, parlato] Men of Greenhouse tackle their Eniwetok problems with the same kind of scientific approach they use in their own home laboratories: attention to detail, elimination of variables, a check and double-check of key apparatus.
  71. [filmato, parlato] This is actual, on-the-spot experimentation.
  72. [filmato, parlato] There is no running back home for a forgotten test tube.
  73. [filmato, parlato] And then the time comes for which all, and the men of Greenhouse move back.
  74. [filmato, parlato] Like a crowd at a beach aware of the incoming tide, they pick up their belongings and retreat to safety.
  75. [filmato, parlato] From the wealth of diversified crafts and skills that go into the making of a great industrial country are drawn those men with the specialized skills necessary to understand and measure atomic detonations.
  76. [filmato, parlato] But to maintain these men, to carry on a weapons test on this Pacific outpost, support is necessary.
  77. [filmato, parlato] Not alone technical support, but the kind of support concerned with just plain everyday living.
  78. [filmato, parlato] There's a detail like food, for instance.
  79. [filmato, parlato] It takes more than a picnic lunch to keep 8,500 hardworking men happy.
  80. [filmato, parlato] And it's no trick at all to get hot and dirty and dusty.
  81. [filmato, parlato] If you don't believe it, try a coral atoll sometime.
  82. [filmato, parlato] Water is the answer, but water is a crucial commodity.
  83. [filmato, parlato] It has to be pumped from the coral beds, then distilled to remove the brackish salt.
  84. [filmato, parlato] And then there's the problem of getting to and from work.
  85. [filmato, parlato] Most of the time, walking is out of the question, unless you have a natural tendency to be amphibious.
  86. [filmato, parlato] Small boats ply between the various islands of this giant lab in the middle of an ocean, and light planes are in constant demand for shuttle service between the islands.
  87. [filmato, parlato] Although the armed forces perform the unheralded but necessary job of supporting Operation Greenhouse, it is not their principal role.
  88. [filmato, parlato] Like the Atomic Energy Commission, the Army, Navy, and Air Force are here to learn.
  89. [filmato, parlato] This is a chance for them to study a weapon still new to warfare.
  90. [filmato, parlato] The more the services know about the effects of atomic weapons, the better able they will be to use them if necessary.
  91. [filmato, parlato] To get the answers they need, samples of the type of tools a military man uses are arranged at various distances from zero point: an armored tank.
  92. [filmato, parlato] This powerful land weapon of the Army has instruments mounted inside which will record the amount of heat an atomic bomb creates in the interior of a steel hull, how much radioactivity, how much pressure; a bomb-proof roof capable of withstanding an atomic blast directly under the detonation point.
  93. [filmato, parlato] By studying this building, representative of structures in industrial areas, the Air Force will gather data on the effect of atomic bombs on potential industrial targets.
  94. [filmato, parlato] What will happen to this airplane wing when blast and heat hit it?
  95. [filmato, parlato] What will be the effect on this fuselage?
  96. [filmato, parlato] To be more realistic, these aircraft will actually fly into the blast area and record the results.
  97. [filmato, parlato] They will find out how close an aircraft can come to the heart of the explosion without suffering serious damage.
  98. [filmato, parlato] All of these things to learn more about the tools of atomic warfare.
  99. [filmato, parlato] At Joint Task Force 3 Headquarters on Parry Island, the commander and his staff make their final decisions for another zero hour.
  100. [filmato, parlato] Weather information from the scattered outlying meteorological stations, from the reconnaissance squadrons, comes funneling into headquarters: precipitation, winds aloft, cloud cover.
  101. [filmato, parlato] Now in dramatic pre-dawn darkness, the drone aircraft are ready to take off on their missions.
  102. [filmato, parlato] Giant planes without a living man on board, and with all their tons of weight and thousands of horsepower, flown by a remote-control officer on the ground through an incredible gadget in his hand.
  103. [filmato, parlato] On signal, the first safety crew abandons its drone.
  104. [filmato, parlato] Comes now the fantastic achievement of a four-motor bomber taken safely off into the air by those distant magic fingers, which then, with even mightier magic, switch the manless controls of the drone aircraft to a mother plane aloft.
  105. [filmato, parlato] Each mother hovering impatiently to take its crewless baby on through the darkness, guiding it into the unknown.
  106. [filmato, parlato] To top the fantasy of the crewless bombers come the fighters.
  107. [filmato, parlato] For the first time in airplane history: drone jets, pilotless, crewless, at super speed flown up into the night sky, controlled only by a driver and over-driver in other jet aircraft, who electronically guide the destinies of their jet drones.
  108. [filmato, parlato] As in previous atomic tests, the drones are flying laboratories for the scientists.
  109. [filmato, parlato] High above the test islands, they are in a strategic position to collect important information on the still not so familiar event: an atomic blast.
  110. [filmato, parlato] As the armed services bring themselves up to date with the results of the latest atomic weapons, the men of science are thinking beyond the current weapons.
  111. [filmato, parlato] They are exploring new horizons, looking for data basic to the sciences of nuclear physics.
  112. [filmato, parlato] Atomic investigators cannot tell whether their calculations were right or wrong merely by watching a weapon go off.
  113. [filmato, parlato] They must attempt to look into, to understand further, the invisible world of the atom.
  114. [filmato, parlato] It is difficult work, complex, thought-provoking, calling for mental courage and physical stamina.
  115. [filmato, parlato] Without delicate instruments, they would be lost, for what they're searching for is in a world so small that the average human mind balks at trying to conceive of it.
  116. [filmato, parlato] We speak so glibly of time, yet do we have any idea of a millionth of a second?
  117. [filmato, parlato] Instruments such as these oscilloscopes have the ability to measure events that occur during the subfractional span of a heartbeat, of the 1 millionth part of a second.
  118. [filmato, parlato] But atomic energy is not being channelized to weaponering alone.
  119. [filmato, parlato] To learn more about the effects on human life, medical experiments are being run.
  120. [filmato, parlato] Test animals will be used to enable men of medicine to learn what pressure, heat, and radiation does to living tissue.
  121. [filmato, parlato] A nation gearing up to an effective civilian defense program must have all the answers: facts about radiological medicine, detection devices, protective materials.
  122. [filmato, parlato] As an illustration, these mice will be exposed to varying doses of atomic radiation, and medical men will study the results.
  123. [filmato, parlato] Information gained from buildings will help determine the vulnerability of United States buildings to atomic attack so that adequate civil defense planning may be carried on.
  124. [filmato, parlato] Materials are to be exposed which are considered as potential fire hazards in atomic warfare.
  125. [filmato, parlato] Such information will influence defensive thinking.
  126. [filmato, parlato] It will aid in the selection of materials, design of equipment and structures, disaster planning.
  127. [filmato, parlato] And so, while tests which can affect the security of a nation wait, while naval vessels make their ceaseless security patrols, while radar scans the skies, while military police guard the beaches, in the master control station a door is closed, padlocked, the single key put in the pocket of one man, head of the firing party.
  128. [filmato, parlato] No one will enter here until the party returns from its final round of checking circuits, closing switches, making ready for the release of nuclear forces.
  129. [filmato, parlato] The firing party returns to its home island and all is put in readiness.
  130. [filmato, parlato] Before the break of day, another momentous blast will light the pre-dawn sky over Eniwetok, set into being by a mechanical gadget called a sequence timer.
  131. [filmato, parlato] The fifth series of atomic tests to measure and understand the nuclear forces of the atom is over.
  132. [filmato, parlato] Eniwetok, at the proving ground, shrinks again to garrison size.
  133. [filmato, parlato] But preparations must be made for another series of experiments.
  134. [filmato, parlato] The need for continuing tests of atomic weapons is self-evident.
  135. [filmato, parlato] We need now, as never before, to expand our knowledge in the field of atomic weaponeering.
  136. [filmato, parlato] If any one group of people recognizes the urgency of time, it is the people living and working on this isolated mesa in New Mexico.
  137. [filmato, parlato] The men of Los Alamos return to their mile-high, security-guarded laboratory to continue with the development of nuclear weapons and important research in many other aspects of the atomic energy program.
  138. [filmato, parlato] The people of this mesa well know the important responsibility placed on them.
  139. [filmato, parlato] For what answers are found within a seemingly insignificant building, what happens behind the wire fences, what a man carries home with him and for security's sake will not speak of, these things are vital to Americans everywhere.
  140. [filmato, parlato] The city once secretly hidden behind Post Office Box 1663 today is so actively and openly engaged in the atomic energy program that it can no longer be cloaked behind a postal number.
  141. [filmato, parlato] For this is the city designed and dedicated to the study of nuclear forces in the atomic age.
  142. [filmato, parlato] A study which concretely means to the American people that new, improved atomic weapons have been developed and proof-tested.
  143. [filmato, parlato] The nation's stockpile position has been bettered.
  144. [filmato, parlato] We have added another stone to our small pile of knowledge about the complex nucleus of the atom.
  145. [filmato, parlato] We have gained important offensive and defensive knowledge on the effects of atomic blasts on military equipment.
  146. [filmato, parlato] We have also learned necessary, realistic lessons for our own protection.
  147. [filmato, parlato] We have studied defense for the individual, defense for the nation.
  148. [filmato, parlato] As a result of atomic tests such as Operation Greenhouse, we are gathering the know-how, the strength to defend that which we prize so highly: the land that is our heritage, this land that is our home.
  149. [filmato 02:40] Panoramica di un paesaggio montuoso e collinare con alberi in primo piano e l'abitato di Los Alamos adagiato sull'altopiano.
  150. [filmato 05:20] Ripresa aerea dall'alto dell'atollo di Eniwetok parzialmente coperto da nubi con le isole e la barriera corallina che emergono dall'oceano.
  151. [filmato 08:00] Una strada residenziale con un'automobile d'epoca scura parcheggiata, un cane pezzato al guinzaglio e un uomo in piedi accanto.
  152. [filmato 10:40] Interno di una sala macchine: un uomo a torso nudo aziona una leva su un grande quadro elettrico dotato di indicatori e strumenti di misura.
  153. [filmato 13:20] Un elicottero militare a elica singola è in volo a bassa quota sopra una rampa con due militari di spalle in primo piano che osservano la manovra.
  154. [filmato 16:00] Sagoma in controluce di un carro armato da combattimento dell'esercito con torretta e antenna/dispositivo montato sul retro.
  155. [filmato 18:40] Ripresa notturna scura sulla pista in cui si intravede la sagoma di un aeromobile in attesa.
  156. [filmato 21:20] Inquadratura scura in controluce della struttura metallica di una torre o edificio prima dell'alba.
  157. [filmato 22:30] Due operatori tecnici in laboratorio maneggiano casse e contenitori protettivi per campioni.
  158. [filmato 22:31] Un militare e una guardia in divisa con elmetto coloniale bianco controllano documenti e permessi presso un varco d'accesso con reticolato.
  159. [filmato 22:32] Quadro strumenti con sei quadranti a orologio indicanti il conto alla rovescia con diciture serigrafate al di sotto. — a schermo: -15 MIN -10 MIN -5 MIN -60 SEC -10 SEC -5 SEC
  160. [filmato 22:33] Un'automobile decappottabile d'epoca esposta su una pedana girevole durante un'esposizione pubblica con visitatori attorno.
  161. [filmato] Elwood Quesada
  162. [filmato] Alvin C. Graves
  163. [filmato] 1951
  164. [filmato] World War II
  165. [filmato] 1948
  166. [filmato] 1943
  167. [filmato] Eniwetok Atoll
  168. [filmato] Los Alamos
  169. [filmato] Central Pacific
  170. [filmato] Parry Island
  171. [filmato] Eniwetok Island
  172. [filmato] United States
  173. [filmato] New Mexico
  174. [filmato] durata 23 minuti (1351 secondi)
  175. [filmato] licenza Public domain
  176. [filmato] pagina d'origine https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ANuclear%20Test%20Film%20-%20Operation%20Greenhouse.webm

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