July 1, 2017 – Seventy-one years to the day after the Test Able atomic bomb test at the Bikini Atoll, former USS Fall River shipmates Bill McGee and Paul Dowling reconnected by telephone, thanks to Paul Dowling’s daughter, Paula. “My dad was at Operation CROSSROADS in 1946,” wrote Paula in an email to Bill in…
Just in from KTVU Fox 2 (the broadcast station) … The atomic veterans story, which Bill was interviewed for in May, will air on Thursday, June 29, on KTVU Fox 2, in the 5-6 pm news hour. Set your DVRs… (Note: We have not seen the edited version.)
April 5, 2017 – Bill had a nice visit with former Fall River shipmate, Bob “Chris” Chrisman. In 1946, Chris and Bill did duty on the heavy cruiser USS Fall River (CA-131) at Operation Crossroads, the first postwar atomic bomb tests at Bikini in July 1946. Chris had just celebrated his 94th and his son, Rob,…
January 25, 2017 Dear Bill, I read your book, Operation Crossroads – Lest We Forget! stem to stern the same day it arrived. It sure brought back memories and some I didn’t know about, like the beer shack and the warm beer. I have a grandson who did a lot of homework on the…
January 2, 2017 Dear Mr. McGee: I had been following with keen interest your five-part series in the U.S. Navy Cruiser Sailors Association magazine about the USS Fall River (CA-131) and its participation in Operation CROSSROADS in 1946. We both came aboard the new heavy cruiser in January 1946 in Norfolk, Virginia—I was a Quartermaster,…
A big thank-you across the Atlantic to Mr. Mark Barnes for his review of Operation Crossroads – Lest We Forget! Read the full review here WAR HISTORY ONLINE … Available on Amazon
Just in … Review by PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bill and I went to Las Vegas for the annual convention of the National Association of Atomic Veterans (NAAV) … a non-profit Veterans Service Organization founded in 1979 for the purpose of assisting America’s atomic veterans secure proof of their exposure to ionizing radiation while on active duty. The National Atomic Testing Museum, an affiliate of…
The USS Fall River (CA-131)… A Baltimore-class heavy cruiser of the United States Navy. She was launched on 13 August 1944 by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation of Camden, New Jersey and named for the town of Fall River, Massachusetts. On 1 July 1945, the Fall River was commissioned with Captain David S. Crawford, USN, in command. On…
Note to reader: Scroll down to Post 1 of 20 to read the timeline in chronological order. According to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science, by 1996, 22,000 of the 42,000 participants of Operation Crossroads had died. Many of them died from causes that can only be attributed to radiation poisoning, while…