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Bikini Atoll - Short Snorter
| Issuer | Joint Task Force One / Task Group One.Five |
|---|---|
| Year | 1946-1947 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | JOINT TASK FORCE ONE ARMY K58509520 E SHORT SNORTER 58th WING 509 COMPOSITE GROUP NAVY K58500320 E 509 SERIE 1946 A Καιρος BIKINI ATOLL CROSSROADS 509 |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | TASK GROUP ONE. FIVE BIKINI KWAJALEIN SHORT SNORTER |
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| Comments |
Short snorters from Operation Crossroads are among the more historically loaded pieces of ephemera to pass through numismatic hands. Joint Task Force One assembled roughly 42,000 personnel — scientists, military observers, journalists, and naval crews — at Bikini Atoll in 1946 to witness the first postwar atomic tests. The short snorter tradition, already well-established among wartime aircrews, carried naturally into this peacetime operation: notes signed by fellow participants, sometimes taped into long chains, functioned as informal proof of presence at a defining moment in weapons history.
Task Group One.Five was specifically the radiological safety unit, which places any note bearing that designation in the hands of personnel monitoring fallout from ABLE and BAKER shots. The signatures are the entire point.