Eyewitness of atomic bomb test recalls seeing its ‘power unleashed’

(Editor’s Note: The subject of this story, Dean L. Batchelder, Sr., Sgt. Major, US Army (Ret.), Elizabethton, Tennessee, passed away July 19, 2015. This story first appeared in the June 29, 2004 edition of the Jonesborough Herald & Tribune, and is reprinted with permission.)

BY LYNN J. RICHARDSON STAR CORRESPONDENT

In 1953, 12 years after atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, the world was aware the United States was in a control of a devastating weapon. But the devastation in Japan was far from home, and few Americans could fully comprehend the monstrous power of such an explosion.

However, one local man, Sgt. Major, U.S. Army, (Ret.) Dean L. Batchelder, Sr., of Elizabethton, remembers the day he saw an atom bomb’s power unleashed in the Mohave Desert.

“It was the most awesome, most destructive thing that I’ve ever seen and yet is was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever witnessed,” Batchelder said. “My ability to express myself as a human being doesn’t allow me the words to describe what I saw.”

Batchelder grew up in Menomonee, Wisconsin. He signed on with the U.S. Army in 1948 at a pay rate of $75 a month. When he returned from Korea in 1951 as a 23-year-old Sgt. First Class, he became the C.B.R. (Chemical, Biological and

“When they dropped the bomb, they counted down the last few seconds… and told us beforehand to kneel down and close our eyes. We were told if we looked at the blast, it would be so bright it would blind us.”

Radiological) officer for his company.

It was in that capacity that he, along with about 500 other soldiers, was sent to Desert Rock, Nevada. The reason for that trip, Batchelder said, was because the military was testing the airburst of an atomic bomb.

“Looking on the map now, I can’t find such a place, but I remember the name well,” he said. He remembers a military bus taking them into Las Vegas and then it was about a 1-1/2 hour bus ride from Las Vegas each way.

Housed in a camp of 10to-20 man tents — a “city of tents” — in the Mohave Desert, Batchelder said they were there a week.

“At nights, they would bus us into Las Vegas for rest and relaxation. They were treating us ‘guinea pigs’ good,” he added with a laugh. “There were several busloads, probably about 500 of us.

“They were also testing the effects on human beings, buildings, animals and military equipment,” Batchelder added. “They had a small village of houses built and different types of structures — wood, brick and steel — built near Ground Zero, the point directly where they would drop the bomb. It was in a dry lake bed.”

Once in the desert, the men were put in trenches, about a mile from Ground Zero. “The terrain was a gradual slope up from the dry lake bed. It was like we had a grandstand view,” he said.

“When they dropped the bomb, they counted down the last few seconds and told us beforehand to kneel down in the trench and close our eyes. We were told that if we looked at the blast, it would be so bright it would blind us.

“Over a loudspeaker, they were counting down — ’10, 9, 8…’ and at the time that the bomb went off,