‘They blew up paradise’: Visiting the home of the atomic bomb

“We will go believing that everything is in the hands of God,” said the king of Bikini Atoll in 1946. The previous year, president Truman had declared that the Pacific archipelago would be America’s nuclear testing ground. Part of the Marshall Islands, its inhabitants would be moved some 125 miles eastward to a neighbouring enclave, and the tests would commence.

The first test, Able, was dropped by aircraft over the lagoon, sinking five military ships. It raised the surface sea temperature an extraordinary 55,000C. Others followed; their effects measured on military ships (largely destroyed) and on animals (goats, pigs, mice: mostly incinerated).

By 1954, the pressure of the Cold War was such that testing intensified. The military ordered Operation Castle, detonating Bravo, a thermonuclear bomb a thousand times more powerful than those at Hiroshima and Nagasaki – the most powerful ever dropped by the United States. Surging 20 miles high, the resulting fireball was far more impactful than expected; radioactive material was detected in India, Australia, the US and Europe. “We had no idea what we were doing,” said a designer involved in the test.

On Bikini Atoll, coconut trees were left entirely stripped; the islanders began to show signs of radiation poisoning. A complicated resettlement plan was put in place for residents, but by 1978 radiation levels were still so high that a permanent return was deemed impossible. Since then, no original islanders have returned home.

Last month, however, a group of people visited the archipelago: not as diplomats, or scientists, but as tourists. The group travelled with Rat Race, an adventure tourism company, to kayak around the atoll in its entirety. Diving trips have, very occasionally, taken place as a result of islander initiatives, but this was something different. It’s so rare, in fact, that the chartered boat is usually employed on rat-catching missions in other parts of the Marshall Islands, and it’s thought that this will be the only trip of its kind for at least five years.

The plan was first suggested before the pandemic, based on a Google Earth search, according to Rat Race founder Jim Mee. “It’s really eerie,” he says. “If you zoom in, you can see where the biggest bomb went off. That happened. That’s a world event. And I wanted to find out if you could travel there.” After years of preparation, the trip finally set out last month.

That initial journey comprised an 11-hour flight to LA from the UK, followed by a six-hour flight to Hawaii and another six-hour flight to the Marshall Islands, and then a three-day boat journey to reach Bikini Atoll. For David Lombard, one of the participants, it was a welcome piece of scene-setting.

“I knew it would take three days,” he says. “I didn’t think, well, it’s on a reasonably small boat, and it’s on a very open ocean, and it might get rough. I spent a lot of time on my own or with the crew, just chatting and fishing.” Others, however, were seasick, confined to their cabins as they rolled over the unwelcoming waves.

Soon, though, all was forgotten. The group of 10 were clambering into their collapsible kayaks, preparing to circle the islands – which are now a designated Unesco World Heritage Site.

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Still, the history of Bikini was unavoidable. “I was very conscious of it,” says Cath Wallis, who had travelled with Rat Race some five times previously. “It’s got beautiful weather, a beautiful lagoon full of aquatic life and it was paradise for the people who lived there for thousands of years before they were moved.”

“It was this contrast for me – between the beauty of the place and the way that we as humans choose to destroy that.”

Of those that actually lived on Bikini before the test, very few are still alive today. Those that do survive were children when they left. Islanders have spoken of their fear of being forgotten as, slowly, first-hand accounts become increasingly rare. Those Bikinian-run dive trips operate for this reason – as part of a scheme to remind visitors of the island’s history.

The task at hand for the visitors, though, was kayaking. For Iain Lathe, a tax office employee who has been on similar trips, this part was daunting. “I’m not a skilled kayak paddler,” he says. “So I was a bit nervous about that before I got there, but by the third day, I felt like I could cope with the choppy conditions a lot better. That was a personal highlight.”

The kayaking allowed for a particularly clear view of the lagoon – and the crater caused by the Bravo detonation. “You can see it from space,” says Wallis. “But from boat level, you could see the really light blue water and then as soon as you went into the crater, it became black, because it’s so deep.”

In between the watersports, the participants walked across the islands, wandering among the relics of a life abandoned. The coconut trees were replanted in the 1960s as part of the atoll’s recovery programme and stand in precise, eerie rows “It’s all overgrown,” says Lathe, “but there was a pickup truck that looked out of place, almost in mint condition. I found that a little surprising. It was a reminder that people left here in a rush.”

For Wallis, a particular photograph – one that showed the islanders paying their last respects at a graveyard – was in her mind.

“When we were walking through Bikini township, I went to the cemetery and I was pretty overwhelmed with emotion, just remembering that photo,” she says. “I think that characterised it for me, the experience that the Bikini islanders had, leaving everything that they knew to go and live on a different island so that we could blow up their home.”

The atoll has had a second life, of sorts, in popular culture. The creator of children’s cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants confirmed that the character lives in the water beneath the atoll. In the 1956 film adaptation of Moby Dick, Gregory Peck points to Bikini Atoll as a potential location of the white whale. It’s a sartorial legacy that lingers, however, in the word bikini itself. The swimsuit was named after the atoll, as its French creator promised an “explosive commercial and cultural reaction”.

Remarkably, the wildlife thrives on Bikini. A pioneering scheme by the Marshallese has seen the atoll’s coral reefs flourish, with tuna, starfish and sponges prospering. Coconut crabs wander the islands in droves – contaminated by the radioactive groundwater, but existing nonetheless.

A report to the United Nations stated that there is still “near-irreversible environmental contamination”. Islanders have been pushing for the removal of topsoil on the atoll, creating, in essence, a fresh start. There was, in fact, a fund for this sort of project, pledged by the US government in the 1980s. But it was discovered last year that the $59 million trust had been depleted by the Department of the Interior. A New York Times report found that only around $100,000 remained – the rest having been used on land development in Hawaii, new ships and planes, and an apartment complex in the Marshall Islands.

For those visiting, the health risks were a secondary concern. “I didn’t give too much thought about the remaining radiation. We were told that it’s safe,” says Lombard. “If it isn’t, well, what can I do? I didn’t really give that much more thought. I just got on with it.” For islanders, no such reassurance exists. Across the Marshall Islands, rates of cancer – many of which are hereditary – are catastrophically high as a result of the fallout.

All of the people involved in the Rat Race trip had some experience of adventure travel, skiing in Mongolia or racing across Namibia, which perhaps inured them to the sense of danger. “I love to travel, and I prefer to travel to places that are unspoilt,” says Lombard. “It’s very intentional. I work a lot, and I work hard. But I’m also aware that you have to do things that make you happy. I know it’s important to have this fantastic balance.”

This trip, though, was different – less about the physical challenge than the sense of being very, very far away. Bikini, the group agreed, felt unique.

“This type of travel is usually quite emotionally charged as it is,” says Lombard. “But it was different because of its history. It was hard to process that they blew up paradise. Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? And I’m still, at times, struggling to make up my mind about it.

“People were displaced, and paradise was damaged. But, on balance, had that not happened, we might not be here to tell the story.”

Representatives of Bikini Atoll were contacted for comment.