Operation Ivy was the eighth series of American nuclear tests, coming after Tumbler-Snapper and before Upshot-Knothole. The purpose of the tests was to help upgrade the U.S. arsenal of nuclear weapons, in response to the Soviet nuclear weapons program. The two explosions were staged in late 1952 at the Pacific Proving Ground in the Marshall Islands.

The first device, codenamed Mike, was notable for being the first successful test of a multi-megaton thermonuclear weapon design (the Teller-Ulam design), usually considered the world's first hydrogen bomb test. Too unwieldy to be deployed as a weapon, it was built to demonstrate the power and possibility of using nuclear fusion as a principle for larger-yield nuclear weapons than previously possible. It was detonated on Elugelab Island in the Enewetak atoll of the Marshall Islands. It yielded 10.4 megatons of explosive power, over 450 times the power of the bomb that fell on Nagasaki. The detonation obliterated Elugelab, leaving an underwater crater 6,240 ft (1.9 km) wide and 164 ft (50 m) deep where an island had once been.

The second test, King, tested was a test of the largest nuclear weapon ever built which utilized only nuclear fission as the source of its energy (it had none of its energy added from fusion or fusion boosting). It was dubbed the "Super Oralloy Bomb", and was intended as a backup if the fusion weapon was a failure. It had a yield of 500 kilotons — substantially smaller than a hydrogen bomb but still 25-40 times more powerful than the weapons dropped during World War II.

See also

• History of nuclear weapons
• Operation Castle

External links

• Operation Ivy

References

• Chuck Hansen, U. S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History (Arlington: AeroFax, 1988)

American nuclear explosive tests | 1952

Operation Ivy