Project Trinity 1945-1946 | Page 4

1945 through 1946, about 1,000 military and civilian personnel took part in Project TRINITY or visited the test site. The location of the test site and its major installations are shown in the accompanying figures.
Military and Scientific Activities
All participants in Project TRINITY, both military and civilian, were under the authority of the MED. No military exercises were conducted. The Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL), which was staffed and administered by the University of California (under contract to the MED), conducted diagnostic experiments. Civilian and military scientists and technicians, with assistance from other military personnel, placed gauges, detectors, and other instruments around ground zero before the detonation. Four offsite monitoring posts were established in the towns of Nogal, Roswell, Socorro, and Fort Sumner, New Mexico. An evacuation detachment consisting of 144 to 160 enlisted men and officers was established in case protective measures or evacuation of civilians living offsite became necessary. At least 94 of these personnel were from the Provisional Detachment Number 1, Company "B," of the 9812th Technical Service Unit, Army Corps of Engineers. Military police cleared the test area and recorded the locations of all personnel before the detonation.
A radiological monitor was assigned to each of the three shelters, which were located to the north, west, and south of ground zero. Soon after the detonation, the monitors surveyed the area immediately around the shelters and then proceeded out the access road to its intersection with the main road, Broadway. Personnel not essential to postshot activities were transferred from the west and south shelters to the Base Camp, about 16 kilometers southwest of ground zero. Personnel at the north shelter were evacuated when a sudden rise in radiation levels was detected; it was later learned that the instrument had not been accurately calibrated and levels had not increased as much as the instrument indicated. Specially designated groups conducted onsite and offsite radiological surveys.
Safety Standards and Procedures
The safety criteria established for Project TRINITY were based on calculations of the anticipated dangers from blast pressure, thermal radiation, and ionizing radiation. The TR-7 Group, also known as the Medical Group, was responsible for radiological safety. A limit of 5 roentgens of exposure during a two-month period was established.
The Site and Offsite Monitoring Groups were both part of the Medical Group. The Site Monitoring Group was responsible for equipping personnel with protective clothing and instruments to measure radiation exposure, monitoring and recording personnel exposure according to film badge readings and time spent in the test area, and providing for personnel decontamination. The Offsite Monitoring Group surveyed areas surrounding the test site for radioactive fallout. In addition to these two monitoring groups, a small group of medical technicians provided radiation detection instruments and monitoring.
Radiation Exposures at Project TRINITY
Dosimetry information is available for about 815 individuals who either participated in Project TRINITY activities or visited the test site between 16 July 1945 and 1 January 1947. The listing does not indicate the precise military or unit affiliation of all personnel. Less than six percent of the Project TRINITY participants received exposures greater than 2 roentgens. Twenty-three of these individuals received exposures greater than 2 but less than 4 roentgens; another 22 individuals received between 4 and 15 roentgens.

PREFACE
From 1945 to 1962, the U.S. Government, through the Manhattan Engineer District (MED) and its successor agency, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), conducted 235 tests of nuclear devices at sites in the United States and in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In all, an estimated 220,000 Department of Defense (DOD)* participants, both military and civilian, were present at the tests. Project TRINITY, the war-time effort to test-fire a nuclear explosive device, was the first atmospheric nuclear weapons test.
* The MED, which was part of the Army Corps of Engineers, administered the U.S. nuclear testing program until the AEC came into existence in 1946. Before DOD was established in 1947, the Army Corps of Engineers was under the War Department.
In 1977, 15 years after the last above-ground nuclear weapons test, the Centers for Disease Control** noted a possible leukemia cluster among a small group of soldiers present at Shot SMOKY, a test of Operation PLUMBBOB, the series of atmospheric nuclear weapons tests conducted in 1957. Since that initial report by the Centers for Disease Control, the Veterans Administration has received a number of claims for medical benefits from former military personnel who believe their health may have been affected by their participation in the weapons testing program.
** The Centers for Disease Control are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (formerly the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare).
In late 1977, DOD began a study to provide data to both the Centers for Disease Control and the Veterans Administration on potential exposures to ionizing radiation among the military and civilian participants in atmospheric nuclear weapons testing.