BUTLER TWP — While many men in his outfit experienced illness and even premature death, an 89-year-old World War II veteran from Butler County has enjoyed good health since being on hand for two atomic bomb tests in the Marshall Islands.

A spry and sharp-minded John Twerdok on Thursday recalled his time at the tail end of the war as a Navy Seaman 1st Class on the USS Bowditch.

The United States had already dropped its devastating bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but testing of the powerful weapons continued.

As part of Operation Crossroads, Twerdok and his shipmates in July 1946 built towers on the beaches of the Bikini Atoll for battery-operated cameras that would photograph the test bombs as they exploded offshore.

Twerdok recalled that the Navy rounded up 75 ships to place in the drop zone as an experiment on the effect the bomb would have on the vessels and the animals that Twerdok and his unit placed on board.

Before dropping the bomb, the sailors were given instructions on their ships 15 miles away from the lagoon that would act as ground zero.

“We were told that on the countdown, we were to hit the deck and close our eyes and not open them until we were told to,” Twerdok recalled. “If we looked at the flash, we would be blinded.”

To learn more about John Twerdok’s experiences, read Sunday’s Butler Eagle.