A-bomb exposure no match for Butler veteran
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.
The ships were captured Japanese and German vessels as well as decommissioned American ships. They were of all sizes, including destroyers and battleships.
The USS Nevada was painted with red lead paint so it could be used as a target by the plane that dropped the test bomb, Twerdok said.
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.”
He recalled the raw power of the atomic bomb, which was a new invention at that time, and the fate of the USS Nevada after the bomb fell.
“That ship exploded maybe 1,000 feet in the air,” Twerdok said. “I opened my eyes and looked out there, and we saw an inferno. That (mushroom cloud) was full of nothing but glowing fire. It was unbelievable.”
Twerdok's daughter, Polly Berginc, displayed one of the pictures taken of the test bomb that showed a huge ship suspended vertically in the column of smoke under the mushroom cloud.
“It blew those ships apart,” Twerdok said. “It took a couple of the largest ships a few days to sink.”
He recalled the USS Saratoga, which was one of the 75 guinea pig ships.
“When that ship went down, I cried,” he said. “That was a beautiful ship.”
The day after the test, with the tall column of smoke still visible, Twerdok and his shipmates were sent into the atoll to collect fish, seaweed, soil samples and other items for Navy scientists to test.
“I was a diver,” Twerdok said. “I was out there swimming in that water in just my skivvies.”
A month later, his ship was sent to another island, where he and other sailors ferried an atomic bomb into a lagoon on a barge. The bomb was then sunk 90 feet for a subsurface test.
Again, an 18-year-old Twerdok hit the deck with his mates as the bomb was ignited. And again, they entered the radioactive waters without protective gear to retrieve samples for scientists.
Each morning, Twerdok said, the sailors would be swept with a Geiger counter. The machines would tick and click as his body was scanned, he recalled.
“If you asked them what the readings meant, they wouldn't tell you,” Twerdok said.
Upon the news that the Bowditch would return home, the sailors were ordered to destroy the small boats they used to collect samples after the bombs were dropped.
“We doused them with gasoline and shot flares at them, and they burned up,” Twerdok said. “They weren't allowed in the U.S.”
The Bowditch itself, which was based in Pearl Harbor, was decontaminated by men in protective gear upon its return home and then sold for scrap.
Twerdok recalled his annual Navy reunions held around the United States after the war.
“Every time we went to a reunion, we had lost a few guys,” Twerdok said.
“They had different cancers from exposure to radiation,” Berginc said.
Twerdok worked at Armco Steel after returning from the war in 1947, marrying his late wife, Jean, and having three children.“I don't know what kept me going,” he said of his longevity despite his exposure to radiation.When his children were in their 20s, they decided to watch a television program on Operation Crossroads.“We're sitting there watching, and there he was,” Berginc said. “We said 'Dad, that's you!'”Twerdok said he regrets that the native islanders on Bikini Atoll were permanently evacuated from their homes before the testing and told never to return.“They were the nicest people,” Twerdok said as he gazed at a picture of the island's tribal chief and his family.He said the aquatic life is still mutated around the island, and the coconuts continue to test positive for radiation.“Still, nobody lives there,” Twerdok said.Twerdok has enjoyed good health since the war, with the exception of a bout of bladder cancer four years ago, which he beat.Asked how he stays in good health, he responds that he does not drink or smoke and remains active.In addition to his three grown children, Twerdok also enjoys the company of his eight grandchildren and nine great grandchildren.While Jean died five years ago, Twerdok does not rest on his heels as he approaches age 90.“I'm busy,” he said.Berginc is still amazed, after all these years, that her father has done so well given his Navy experience.“They had no idea what they were dealing with at the time,” she said of the bomb testing. “They sent those guys in there totally unprotected.”
