Operation Wigwam

Operation Wigwam
Wigwam test detonation.
Information
CountryUnited States
Test sitePacific Ocean off California
Period1955
Number of tests1
Test typeUnderwater
Max. yield30 kilotonnes of TNT (130 TJ)
Test series chronology
Video of the test—12 second intro

Operation Wigwam[1] involved a single test of the Mark 90 "Betty" nuclear bomb. It was conducted between Operation Teapot and Project 56 on May 14, 1955, about 500 miles (800 km) southwest of San Diego, California. 6,800 personnel aboard 30 ships were involved in Wigwam. The purpose of Wigwam was to determine the vulnerability of submarines to deeply detonated nuclear weapons, and to evaluate the feasibility of using such weapons in a combat situation.[2] The task force commander, Admiral John Sylvester, was embarked on the task force flagship USS Mount McKinley. Wigwam was the first atomic test in the deep ocean, and it remains the only test that has been conducted in water deeper than 1,000 ft (300 m).[3][4]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference LT_1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "Operation WIGWAM, Report of Commander, Task Group 7.3" (61 pg. PDF). July 22, 1955. Archived (PDF) from the original on December 1, 2021. Retrieved December 1, 2021.
  3. ^ Sheehy, M. J.; Halley, R. (1957). "Measurement of the attenuation of low-frequency underwater sound". J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 29 (4): 464–469. Bibcode:1957ASAJ...29..464S. doi:10.1121/1.1908930.
  4. ^ Dushaw, B. (2015). "WIGWAM reverberation revisited". Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America. 105 (4): 2242–2249. Bibcode:2015BuSSA.105.2242D. doi:10.1785/0120150024. Retrieved July 14, 2018.