OPERATION CASTLE: PHOTO ALBUM
THE UNSEEN SIDE OF THE ATOMIC TESTS.
Photo album, 1954, Album containing 115 mounted silver gelatin print photographs, 7 x 10 inches through 5 x 3 1/2 inches, plus a collection of loose silver gelatin print photographs: 24 5 x 7 inches; 20 approximately 5 x 4 inches; 6 approximately 8 x 10 inches, many with Lookout Mountain stamp on verso.
Provenance: the collection of Lt. Col. James Gaylord, Commander of Lookout Mountain Laboratory.
Unusual album that provides a rarely seen side of Operation Castle, the high-yield nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll held as a joint venture between the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the Department of Defense (DoD). Includes images of the photographic crew with their airborne equipment, military and scientific personnel, but also the people of the Marshall Islands and the military recreational activity. Apparently created as a souvenir of the event by the photography studio at United States Air Force's Lookout Mountain Hollywood Hills production studio. A curious artifact of the Cold War.