Test: Able
Time: 14:00 22 October 1951 (GMT)
6:00 22 October 1951 (local)
Location: Nevada Test Site (NTS), Area 7
Test Height and Type: 100 foot Tower Shot
Yield: Zero Yield

This was a test of the Petite Plutonium fission bomb, designed by Ted Taylor. It consisted of a standard 60 inch, 10,000 lb. implosion system with the plutonium core reduced to what was estimated to be close to the minimum amount of fissile material for an appreciable yield. This was the lowest yield design yet tested, with a predicted yield of only 200 tons. It was a fizzle - the first actual failure of any U.S. nuclear device (the 18th exploded by the U.S.), and the first known failure of any nuclear device. Rather than being a sign of ineptness, this failure was indicative of the increasingly aggressive (and thus risky) U.S. experimental approach to weapon development. It established a close lower bound on the minimum amount of plutonium that could be used in a weapon to produce a significant yield, an important benchmark in weapon design.

This was inadvertently a "zero yield" test. The device achieved super criticality and produced detectable nuclearoutput, but the energy produced was negligible compared to the high explosive used. When inspected after the detonation, the 100 foot tower was found to be scorched black, crumpled and laying on the ground from the test. The high exposives used to obtain critical mass detonated but the plutonium core did not achieve sufficient super criticality as designed, the core was blown apart and radioactive material was scattered for some distance around the Able Shot Test. The area was too contaminated for the AEC but they sent the troops back to the area the next day after the detonation. The soldiers were not alerted about the radiation danger. A group of us walked up to the tower that was on the ground, and wondered why the tower was not blown away completely by the atomic blast, our Geiger Counter Meter went off scale. The answer is that it was a dud and the high explosives were the only cause for the damage. Click Here to view a memorandum about the disposal of the "Able" tower at Station 5 in Area 7. This PDF copy is not very easy to read, but with a little effort you can get the gist of it. I can translate: "The tower has recently been monitored and found to be free of contamination. By copy of this letter permission is granted to use a cutting torch for purpose of disposing of the tower in a burial ground located 1.5 miles northeast at Station 201 in Area 7. Only those portions of the tower remaining intact are cleared. All fragments or loose sections found in the area are to be considered contaminated and are not to be touched by a torch."

Click Here to view another document about the contamination surrounding the "Able" tower that supported  the first atomic bomb to be detonated at the Nevada Test Site in 1951.  When it detonated the high explosives scattered radioactive plutonium over test positions 1 and 2. In their haste to continue with the atomic tests the Atomic Energy Commission didn't make aware the danger of radiation to 188th Airborne Infantry Regiment.  The members of the 188th continued to work in the area for several weeks following the "Able" atomic detonation. The Atomic Energy Commission waited several weeks after the 188th had returned to Fort Campbell, Kentucky to send a "Dupe" to the area to see if the radiation had diminished sufficiently so they could order another unsuspecting person to go to the tower and cut it up with a torch. The Editor of this Web Site obtained this document from the archived atomic files located at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. We were expendable. 

The first attempt to fire this device (on 19 October) was a true failure - nothing happened. The problem was traced to the control circuitry. I remember the AEC sent a sap down to investigate to see what was wrong, I don't know how much whiskey they had to pour down him in preparation for his trip to the tower. After he arrived at the tower, he discovered that the elevator that took engineers to the top of the tower had broken the cable wires that sent the signal to detonate the bomb.

The Cold-War inspired accelerating tempo of nuclear weapons activity led to the inauguration of more complex joint test operations between the Department of Defense and the nuclear weapons labs (at this time consisting only of Los Alamos). The previous test series had either been run by the DOD (Crossroads) or Los Alamos (Sandstone, Ranger, and Greenhouse). In late 1951 two test series were held together for the first time - Operation Buster (conducted by Los Alamos) and Operation Jangle (conducted by the DOD). 7800 DOD personnel participated in Buster-Jangle, 6500 of them troops who conducted field exercises in conjunction with the tests. These were the first such field exercises conducted in the United States proper.

Buster-Jangle was held at the Nevada Proving Ground (later NTS) and had a number of objectives. The Buster series was primarily a weapon development effort. A number of pit configurations were fired in a Mk-4 high explosive assembly to collect data for weapons design. In addition the TX-7E design was proof fired (leading to the deployment of the Mk7 light weight bomb). The DOD also particpated in one of the Buster tests conducting the Desert Rock I exercise during the Dog shot. The Jangle series evaluated the usefulness of atomic weapons in cratering using ground-level and sub-surface bursts. The Desert Rock II and III troop exercises were held in conjunction with these tests. The purpose of the Desert Rock exercises was to gain experience in operations Conducted in a nuclear combat environment.

Buster-Jangle released about 10,500 kilocuries of radioiodine (I-131) into the atmosphere (for comparison, Trinity released about 3200 kilocuries of radioiodine). This produced total civilian radiation exposures amounting to 7.4 million person-rads of thyroid tissue exposure (about 2% of all exposure due to continental nuclear tests). This can be expected to eventually cause about 2300 cases of thyroid cancer, leading to some 120 deaths. From the National Cancer Institute Study Estimating Thyroid Doses of I-131 Received by Americans From Nevada Atmospheric Nuclear Bomb Test.