Operation Ivy

By Donald Stout

From: Lovebug3231@aol.com Subject: Re: Keith ...Operation Ivy

Keith,

I went aboard U.S.S. Estes AGC12 in July 1952. We left the states after Labor Day and headed for Hawaii. What a mess. We stayed for two or three days, and I went a shore for few hours and took in the sights.

We then headed west to the Marshall Islands. I recall that Eniwetok was a small Island with an N.C.O. bar and an officers bar and not much else. We went back to the test island a few days after the test and the island was no more.

The morning of the test I was topside on main deck on the starboard side about midship. We wore no protection but was told to turn our backs and cover our eyes. Before we heard the noise, I could feel the heat on my back and I said to myself "how much hotter is this going to get"???. They announced we could turn around and watch the mushroom make its way in the sky, "what a sight".

The next morning at quarters they announced that if anyone had written home and mentioned anything about what they witnessed, go to the ship post office and get your letters back. You should have seen the long lines... However the word did get back as the San Francisco paper had a big headline about it. Their were quite a few court martials held out there because of the information that leaked out. Gossup was that some Captain was court martialed because they proved some information left his ship..

Several weeks later they dropped the biggest "A" bomb at the time and I had duty during this test. I wanted to hear the explosion when it went off, so I put my ear close to the bulkhead and that was a big mistake. The concussion knocked me several feet away and knocked the coffee pot off the burner.

For recreation we went to a small island called Japtan where we went swimming and played around. On the back side of the island their was an old merchant ship named "the Nickajack Trail". It had a big hole in the bow, probably from a jap torpedo. When we returned to the states, we went to Mare Island ship yard. We were in drydock for several months (scrapping of the contamination).

During July and August of 1953, the only two months of the year you can take a ship to Point Barrow, Alaska, we took supplies. However the iceburgs we passed going north and the wind shifted during the night, causeed the iceburgs to block us in the harbor. Our Ice breaker "The Northwind" manged to fly a line to us and pulled us out of the harbor. In doing so the screw got bent and we sailed back at only 8 knots per hour. It was a very long trip back. On the way back we received word the "Korean War" was over. I was discharged September 23, 1953. I stayed in the reserves for several years.

Donald Frank Stout

RM3 U.S.S. Estes AGC12 Operation IVY

Email: Lovebug3231@aol.com