Ghost Fleet: The Sunken Ships of Bikini Atoll

Ghost Fleet: The Sunken Ships of Bikini Atoll by Delgado, James P.. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780824818685.

In July 1946 a fleet of 242 ships, among them some of the most famous of World War II, assembled within the lagoon of Bikini Atoll, 4,500 miles from San Francisco. There, in a massive military effort dubbed Operation Crossroads, thousands of scientists and U.S. military personnel gathered to assess the atomic bombs effect on warships in the worlds first nuclear weapons tests. Four decades later, in 1989, a highly trained team of underwater archaeologists returned to Bikini to evalu-ate the ships as historic and archaeological sites and as potential diving attractions. In Ghost Fleet, author James Delgado, a member of that team, offers a fascinating account of Operation Crossroads and the forgotten remains that have turned Bikinis lagoon into a vast underwater ghost town.