![]() Some guy was saying the Lord’s Prayer, another guy was saying, ‘Oh my God, we’re all going to die’.”Ĭastle Bravo was a grave international incident, prompting calls for a worldwide ban on the testing of thermonuclear devices, which was finally enacted in 1963. Robert “Red Dog” Mackenzie, a Marine who served as an orderly on the USS Curtiss, recalls the utter terror that gripped the crew when the ship was enveloped by the mushroom cloud. Richard ‘Hans’ Wegner, one of the ‘Atomic Marines’ (Photo: PBS) I thought, ‘well, at least I’m not crazy!’” ![]() “I wasn’t going to say anything to anyone, but later on I asked a couple of guys and they said, ‘Yes, I saw that, too’. That’s when I thought I was going crazy because I could see the bones in my lower arm. Richard “Hans” Wegner tells i of his shock as he was crouched on the deck of the USS Curtiss, trying to shield his eyes from the blast with just his arms for protection. But after being sworn to secrecy about their Cold War mission, the “Atomic Marines” are now finally speaking out ahead of Burning Sky, a documentary which premieres on PBS America on Wednesday 23 June. Some of those present likened this terrifying experience to the end of the world. In the aftermath, most of the chain of islands ceased to exist. The fallout levels from Castle Bravo were the highest in history, dispersing radioactive material as far away as Australia, India, Japan, the US and even parts of Europe. The mushroom cloud stretched 22 miles high. The explosion produced a fireball that was four miles in diameter and hotter than the surface of the sun, while its flash of light was a thousand times brighter than our star.
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