The Press: Report from Bikini

There were 118 newsmen aboard the press ship Appalachian at Bikini, and the competition was keen. Some of the boys, anxious to get their stories moving ahead of their rivals, wrote “eye-witnessers” in advance. One even faked an “interview” with Bombardier Harold H. Wood, the man who dropped the bomb. (“It was like dropping a cherry on a frosted cake.”) And to make it authentic, the reporter added a personal detail: “I was thrown against a bulkhead and my typewriter knocked off the table by the jarring blast.”

When the bomb actually did fall, the reporter hustled off to make sure that his first story had not been sent. The A-bomb blast had not even been felt aboard ship.