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Her skippers conned the ship through World War II from this bridge, and she emerged with only a few kamikaze scars. Then, a 1946 atomic bomb test blew her 43 feet out of the water and sank her.t Today, the carrier* Saratoga rests on the ocean floor off Bikini, offering mute testimony to tfre power of nirclear weaponry*
Between 5-17 August 1988 the
U.S. Navy deployed Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit Two to study and determine the historical significance of submerged Navy ships sunk during the Operation Crossroads atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. Following this exercise, on 21 December 1988, the Department of Energy asked the National Park Service to evaluate the significance, marine park potential, and diving hazards associated with the sunken fleet at Bikini.
During the last two weeks of August 1989 and again in May 1990, a team of five Park Service archaeologists and historians dived on five of the sunken target ships at Bikini, concentrating on the hulk of the aircraft carrier Saratoga (CV-3), whose mast and island can be seen, faintly, in the water. The vessel rises to within 40 feet of the surface and readily shows the effects of the Baker Test bomb’s detonation. Hatches and the elevator bay stand open; four aircraft lie in the hangar. The vessel retains her integrity as a ship, however, and is easily identifiable as the Saratoga. Interior spaces generally were not penetrated. Exceptions were the hangar deck amidships, the after 5-inch gun handling room, the turret above it, the windless and emergency radio compartments in the bow, and—on the island—the flag plot, navigation bridge, and the aerological office.
Below the flight deck, damage primarily consists of dishing along the starboard shell plating, most noticeably on the torpedo blister, which is pushed in between frames to a depth of six feet in some areas. The dishing of the shell plating intensifies farther aft. The various hatches on the starboard side are for the most part blown in, partially collapsed, or missing. All porthole deadlight blast covers are closed; the glass in every observed porthole is missing. Wire rope life nets once strung above the sponson deck are missing, with the exception of some loose netting hanging forward of the starboard boat bay and close to the stem. The worst damage to the hull is aft on the starboard side. The shell plating and doubler plates above the turn of the bilge and the blister are tom free, exposing the frames.
Tons of falling water aft collapsed the flight deck for approximately 200 feet, beginning near the stem and continuing forward to the after end of the funnel. Between the outermost longitudinal bulkheads (an area 70 feet wide) the flight deck was pushed in 12 to 20 feet. Navy reports in 1946 noted “the indentation [of the flight deck] is gradual with no abrupt breaks or bends. There is no indication that the steel deck has ruptured but the wood decking has been splintered and broken. ...” The steel deck is now ruptured—or was in 1946—and obscured by splintered wood. A large break nearly halfway aft separates the deck with another crack on the starboard side near the boat bay.
The major area of deck failure is just aft of the funnel; the collapse roughly conforms to the area of the No. 2 elevator, which was sealed off in early 1945 during the Saratoga's last preCrossroads refit. The platform that covered the elevator was reported missing in 1946 dives on the wreck. “This platform was reported found on the starboard quarter of the ship.” In fact, the platform collapsed into the hangar deck. What was thought to be the platform on the starboard quarter is probably the drip pan that mounted one of two SBF-4E Helldivers on the fantail. The starboard aircraft was secured to the pan with its wings spread, and it was “blown over the side from the Saratoga before the ship sank. The steel drip pan in which the airplane was secured was left on deck and sank with the Saratoga." A partial deck break beneath the collapsed funnel probably caused the latter’s collapse.
The Saratoga's elevator, forward of the funnel, lies at the bottom of the shaft, diagonally bent at a near 90° angle. The elevator was stowed in the locked up position for the test, as it had been for Able. In that test, it had dished down “slightly,” with “a number of broken welds, in a number of places below the platform, on the structural members.” The Baker blast accentuated this damage.
The flight deck is partially collapsed near the bow, which generally conforms to an area damaged by kamikaze attack off Iwo Jima on 21 February 1945, and subsequently repaired, possibly hastily, for return to service. Diver reports in 1946 noted that “the flight deck forward appeared to be intact” and that “the flight deck in the area of the catapults was undamaged by the blast.” The subsequent collapse of the deck in this area may therefore be post-depositional and attributable to a twice-damaged area weakened by corrosion that finally collapsed sometime after the sinking.
Above the flight deck, the primary damage was to the ship’s funnel, which split and fell to port across the flight deck. A slight angle toward the bow indicates a probable lateral twisting from the blast or from the water column’s falling mass at the stem. The funnel tore free at the base, exposing the intakes. It has collapsed into itself, with only the major longitudinal and transverse framing left intact, and with plating lying broken and scattered inside on the deck. The funnel’s horizontal framing, where intact, is curved and bent to port—in some cases as much as six or more feet—from the blast effect. The only intact portion of the toppled funnel is its forward end, with a plated secondary conning position and the broken but recognizable set of SM fighter-director radar mounted at the top of its forward end.
Damage to the island and mast includes shattered deadlights, hatches and doors blown off their hinges, toppled Pelorus stands, and sheared antennae. The single pole mast aft the island was blown off at its crosstree; the wire rope that rigged the mast lies festooned on the after area of the island. The SK radar antenna that topped the mast fell forward, and pieces of it lie tangled and broken on the island in front of the flag plot bridge. The mount for a whip antenna lies on the deck outside the navigation bridge; one level below, a searchlight that once stood on the platform aft of the mast lies face down on the deck. The stub mast that projected aft of the pole mast is now bent 90 degrees to port and is broken. A spar from the mast lies on the flight deck outboard of the funnel, and a cable runs from it over the starboard side. From this cable a whip antenna mount is suspended. Other antenna, including those for all other observed directors, are missing.
When it was subjected to the Baker Test blast the Saratoga had five aircraft secured to the flight deck, but swept off the ship by the blast or the falling water column. In 1988 an airplane was reported sitting on the bottom off the starboard side. No one saw it in 1989. Four aircraft (out of four stowed there for the Baker test) are in the hangar: three “Helldiver” SBF-4E dive-bombers and a TBM-3E torpedo bomber.
The Saratoga also carried eight paired 5-inch 38-caliber guns in four houses— two forward, two aft. Prior to Crossroads, two of the houses were removed. The No. 2 gun position, which stood atop its handling room above the No. 1 gun, forward of the island, is missing. Its barbette remains atop the handling room.
The ship carried single 5-inch/38- caliber guns, 40mm. Bofors antiaircraft
Sara at the Crossroads
By the end of World War II, the USS Saratoga (CV-3) was the oldest surviving aircraft carrier in the U.S. Navy. She was also deemed obsolete. Ordered to the West Coast for decommissioning, the Saratoga instead went into “Magic Carpet” service in November 1945. Twenty-eight hours after launching her last plane the carrier was transporting 3,800 happy war veterans from Pearl Harbor to Alameda, California.
The Saratoga had set the record for the number of aircraft landed on a carrier, with a lifetime total of 98,549 in 17 years. That number would soon be threatened. The introduction of the atomic bomb called for extensive testing, and old naval vessels would make excellent targets. In January 1946 President Harry S. Truman approved “Operation Crossroads,” a series of three tests that would determine warships’ ability to withstand the atomic bomb.
On 22 January the Saratoga was attached to the carrier unit of the target ship task group being assembled by Joint Task Force One for the operation. She had been designated to replace the carrier Ranger (CV-4) as a target vessel and underwent preparations for the tests in early 1946 at Hunter’s Point Naval Drydock in San Francisco. Sent back to Pearl Harbor “after stripping’ and reduction of personnel, the Saratoga arrived on April 7 and proceeded to Bikini Atoll, where the target fleet was moored for the tests. She steamed from Pearl in the company of the destroyer Anderson (DD-411).
The Saratoga was selected for Operation Crossroads because of the large number of wartime-built Essex (CV-9)-class carriers available for future use. The Saratoga’s compartmentalization was “unusually complete,” with more than 1,000 watertight compartments, and her “underwater protection was very similar in arrangement to that of modem battleships and large carriers.” The Lexington (CV-2) had not survived the war; the Saratoga would not last much longer. It was moored intentionally 2,260 yards off the zero point lor the “Able” test blast of 1 July 1946 to save it for the “Baker” test. The Saratoga was lightly damaged in the first blast, with a fire on deck that was eventually extinguished.
The Saratoga was moored closer to the “Baker test zero point; reports vary from 300 to 500 yards off the carrier’s starboard beam. Initial array plans for Baker placed the ship within a 300-yard radius of the zero point. This position was deemed likely to sink the carrier so quickly that “no photographs could be made of the behavior of her flight deck under the severe hull pressure and wave action expected.” She had been changed to a 500-yard distant mooring, within the 500- to 700-yard lethal radius of the blast, but because of slack moorings and a wind change she drifted closer to the zero point before the detonation.
The terrific blast of the Baker Test device on 25 July blew the ship out to a position of 800 yards before it drifted back in and sank 600 yards from the zero point. The detonation lifted the Saratoga out of the water 43 feet at the stern and at least 29 feet at the bow. A large column of water washed over the ship, sweeping away five TBM-3E and SBF-4E aircraft stowed on deck, as well as vehicles and equipment placed there for the test. The blast and wave that swept out from the zero point buckled shell plating, dished in the flight deck, and knocked three-quarters of the funnel to the flight deck.
After the blast, the Saratoga lay low in the water and listed to starboard. Radiation prevented salvage crews from boarding her. In the next seven-and-a-half hours, the ship settled slowly, submerging the starboard torpedo blister. Sinking by the stem and listing six degrees to starboard, the Saratoga filled with water pouring down the boiler intakes and the elevator. The stem struck bottom first at 4:00 p.m. “The ship righted and hung momentarily with the mast, the top of the pilothouse, and approximately 150 feet of the bow out of the water. Air escaping all along the port side bubbled violently to the surface, throwing spray into the air.” At 4:06 the bow went under, and four minutes later the top of the mast disappeared below the surface.
Navy divers ultimately inspected the wreck and found it lying in 180 feet of water. The ship had settled into the bottom to the shaft level, leaving the screws exposed. The starboard bilge was about seven to eight feet above the bottom. The Navy determined from oil leaks that the bottom shell plating had ruptured. This, they concluded, along with a tear in the hull near the starboard quarter, and the failure of sea chests and valves, had sunk the Saratoga. The carrier was decommissioned on 15 August 1946, and stricken from the Navy Register.
James P. Delgado
guns in quadruple mounts, and single 20mm. Oerlikon antiaircraft guns on the sponson deck. All are still there. Four of the ship’s original (1945) 12 5-inch guns and six of the original 24 quad 40mm. guns also remain. Five of 52 Oerlikon 20mm. guns had been mounted but were lying on the bottom aft close to the sheared off sponsons they were mounted on. Either the blast effect or falling water or the ship’s stem sinking first and touching bottom tore them off. Twelve Mk-51 gun fire control directors were noted, mounted on the sponsons next to the antiaircraft guns.
The Saratoga carried about two thirds of its ammunition for the tests. None was found for the guns, but aerial bombs and torpedoes are still in the hangar. A large number of Mk-51 gun directors are mounted on the sponsons near the gun positions.
The steel flight deck, once covered
Clockwise from above, against an artist's rendering of the dive team inspecting Sara on the sea bottom: Bikinian dive team inspects the blast gauge tower; Sara's collapsed funnel; the island at flag-plot level; equipment panel, aft end of bridge; an SBF-4E Helldiver, with wings folded, on the hangar deck; 350- pound depth bombs.
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ARTWORK BY TOM FREEMAN/PHOTOGRAPHY BY LARRY MURPHY. NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
Underwater Park Service
The National Park Service (NPS) is the only government agency with a field team of underwater archaeologists. The Submerged Cultural Resources Unit (SCRU), headquartered at the NPS regional office in Santa Fe, New Mexico, was established in 1974 to assess the effects of inundation on prehistoric sites being drowned by federal reservoir projects. In 1980, its inundation study complete, SCRU shifted its emphasis to submerged cultural resources in the National Park System. The NPS manages 356 park areas, and more than 50 parks have substantial underwater areas. The National Park System contains more than 2,500,000 acres of underwater land, an area equal to that of Yellowstone National Park.
Headed by Daniel J. Jenihan, the unit includes archaeologist Larry Murphy, an equipment technician, and Secretary Fran Day. On occasion SCRU projects bring in other NPS staff such as archaeologists Larry
Nordby and Jim Bradford, scientific illustrator Jerry Livingston, and maritime historian James Delgado.
In recent years SCRU has been working in and out of the parks in close cooperation with the Navy. Under the auspices of Project Seamark, SCRU works with active and reserve salvage and explosive ordnance divers. Seamark (as opposed to landmark) projects have included a 5-year survey of Pearl Harbor that focused on the USS Arizona and USS Utah, the documentation of shipwrecks in Palau and Guam, surveys and assessments of shipwrecks and other submerged cultural resources in several parks, a survey of sunken remains from the Aleutians Campaign off Kiska Island, and two field seasons of work at Bikini Atoll, assessing the sunken fleet of Operation Crossroads.
James P. Delgado
with teak decking, is now exposed.
The area of the palisades is discernible, as are the tracks for the catapults. Aft,
21-inch bitts and arresting gear running athwartship, are in place. Other deck furniture includes the forward aircraft crane, which dropped and lies on the deck in its original position. The hatch for the bomb elevator is open, while that of the torpedo elevator is secured. An anchor is stowed in a port bow hawsepipe and anchor chain runs from the bow to the bottom, no longer attached to a mooring.
As part of the tests, military teams and scientists affixed equipment and gauges to the Saratoga, much of which remains, in some cases as traces of badly damaged instruments or their mounts. Mounting brackets and pallets for equipment lie aft of the funnel; one of these pallets, on the port side of the flight deck in the area of the after elevator, around frame 120, holds the remains of Army Signal Corps test equipment, the remains of the packing case and “safety trough” for a radio set, and an air-cooled diesel power unit that were mounted to the deck.
An Army ordnance task unit placed a light and heavy tank, an M-l cable system, a 90mm. GMC, Mark 36, and of two guns, a 155mm. gun remains attached to the deck.
Also on deck are two blast gauge towers, one forward and one aft. The forward tower lies off the port forward comer of the elevator; the after tower is set some 50 feet abaft the funnel. These roughly pyramidical towers, known as “Christmas trees,” served as
mounts for foil peak-pressure gauges made of Vi-inch brass plates with round holes of various diameters up to two inches bored through them. Tin foil was sandwiched between the plates, which were enclosed at the rear by a “sturdy air-tight cover, to prevent instantaneous equalization of pressure.” Blast effect in the range of 0 to 50 pounds per square inch was measured by the rupturing of the foil; a greater blast effect ruptured smaller-diameter foil, while a lesser blast ruptured only the more exposed foil in the larger- diameter holes.
Other test equipment noted on the ship were two parabolic chromed, polished aluminum dishes. A 12-inch dish found outside the chartroom on the navigation bridge and a 24-inch dish at the after port comer of the same deck are the remains of “pendulum type inclinometers” developed for the tests. The inclinometers were used automatically to record angles of rolls and pitch of target ships.
The 44-square-foot forward elevator shaft drops one deck into the hangar deck, which is approximately 20 feet high and 70 feet wide. The elevator platform lies on the bottom of the shaft, which opens aft into the hangar deck. Just inside the deck, near the after starboard comer, lies a rack of five 500-lb. G.P. bombs, the primary armament of the SBF-4E Helldiver aircraft in the hangar. The bombs are fused. Inside the deck, at the after port comer of the elevator, are four 350-lb. depth bombs, with hydrostatic tail fuses; one of the fuses was armed and
was defused by a Navy EOD technician who “safed” it with epoxy.
Aft of the four aircraft stowed in it, the hangar is open; to starboard lie a number of Mk-13 torpedoes, some missing their warheads. The torpedoes, like the bombs, were placed on the ship for testing; the depth charges and torpedoes were prepared in two ways: in normal condition but without the booster and detonator but with the main charge; or with booster and detonator installed but with the main charge replaced by inert material. “Thus a sensitive explosive would not necessarily detonate a less sensitive charge.” The hangar deck was penetrated no further than this point.
The Saratoga’s hulk will remain upright and intact on the bottom of Bikini Atoll Lagoon for some time. If the people of Bikini decide to open their waters to divers in the future, the ship will become the only aircraft carrier in the world open for underwater visitation. One of the U.S. Navy’s most famous and historically significant vessels, the Saratoga could not be saved as a floating memorial after the war in the same manner as the USS Texas and scores of other combatant vessels. Ironically, the atomic bomb that sank her did save her, however. And the Saratoga currently rests quietly in a watery grave that may someday host scuba- equipped visitors.
Mr. Delgado is maritime historian for the National Park Service and head of the National Maritime Initiative.