Wahoo and Umbrella: Underwater Nuclear Goodness

You’re sitting on the deck of your yacht, enjoying a breezy South Pacific afternoon when all of a sudden a nuclear bomb goes off underwater about 2 miles from you and a wall of water soaks you and ruins your Mai Tai. OK, so the ship in the photo above isn’t exactly a luxury yacht. Instead, it was a US Navy vessel studying an underwater nuclear detonation known as Wahoo. Part of Operation Hardtack 1, Wahoo was a 9 kiloton deep underwater test. Umbrella was another Hardtack 1 test detonation of an 8 kiloton nuclear device at a shallower depth. OK, enough with the words. Hit the jump for a video of these tests narrated by one of the cameramen sitting on a beach filming all the nuclear goodness.

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