Amchitka

This is part of the bomb sites series by elin o'Hara slavick. Also available in book form: Bomb After Bomb: A Violent Cartography.

Amchitka Island, "Midway point on the great arc of Alaska's Aleutian Islands, designated a national wildlife refuge in 1913. The Pentagon and the Atomic Energy Commission went looking for a place to blow up H-bombs. As a result, Amchitka was the site of 3 large underground nuclear tests, including the most powerful nuclear explosion ever detonated by the United States. 1965: the Long Shot test exploded an 80-kiloton bomb. 1969: the Milrow Nuclear test of one megaton, 10 times more powerful than Long Shot. 1971: Cannikan Bomb, 5 megatons, 385 times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima." - Jeffrey St. Clair, In These Times, August 8, 1999 "The purpose was to test an island, not a weapon." -military official, online source

Published by: elin
We are not responsible for this in any way - stephansmap.org.