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 favorable. However, fairly heavy cloud cover was reported early on the morning of 1 July, and shot time was changed to 0900.

Evacuation of task force support ships began soon after CJTF 1 set the hour for ABLE. All destroyers except USS Moale (DD-693) got underway and were clear of the lagoon by early afternoon on 30 June. Most of the support ships of TG 1.2 were out of the lagoon shortly thereafter, except for the TG 1.2 flagship USS Fall River (CA-131) and three small support ships. Throughout the afternoon the vessels of TG 1.8 cleared the lagoon. Three tugs towed barges to Kwajalein and USS Chowanoc (ATF-100) towed YO-130 to the open sea, more than 20 nmi (37 km) northeast of Bikini Atoll. Small craft had evacuated task force personnel from Enidrik and Eneman islands and transferred them to Fall River, which then left the lagoon along with the smaller ships of TG 1.2. Ten ships remained in the lagoon after 1800 hours.

Preparations ashore had included removal of the roofs of buildings to prevent blast damage and removal of the pontoon-supported docks and causeways that had been installed on the islands. Machinery such as refrigerators, generators, and water-distilling units had been covered by tarpaulins.

USS Chilton (APA-38) evacuated 691 nonessential U.S. personnel and natives from Enewetak before the test. Provision had been made to evacuate essential U.S. personnel on Enewetak if necessary, and five C-54 air transports were at Enewetak for this purpose. The Marshallese on Rongerik to the east had been taken aboard USS LST-989 in case evacuation was necessary there.

Two additional C-54s were sent from their Kwajalein base on 30 June, one to Enewetak and one to Roi Island. These were scheduled to receive the radioactive cloud samples to be collected by the B-17 drone samplers based at Enewetak and the F6F drone samplers returning to Roi following the shot.

At 0512 on 1 July, PGM-23 had all task force personnel from Iroij, Nam, and Aomen islands embarked and was underway for the fleet assembly area. At 0524 USS Kenneth Whiting (AV-14) had all personnel from Bikini and Eneu islands aboard and was underway. The last ship out of the lagoon was USS Mount McKinley (AGC-7). These ships joined the other JTF 1 ships in operating areas east of Bikini. These operating areas were designated by the names of automobile manufacturers.

The first airborne aircraft were three B-29s that had made weather reconnaissance flights in the shot area and northeast and northwest of Bikini Atoll. At 0540 CJTF 1 ordered the drop aircraft to take off from Kwajalein. This was a specially modified B-29 on which the bomb had been loaded about midnight (Figure 22). At 0555 the bomber was reported as being airborne. The four F6F drones and sixteen F6F controllers from USS Shangri-La (CV-38) were airborne shortly after 0700. In all, 79 aircraft were airborne on the morning of ABLE. By 0800 all aircraft and ships were on station. One F6F drone went out of control and crashed in the sea just as the B-29 began its live run at 0850. The bombing aircraft had made one practice run before the live run. Aircraft participation in Test ABLE is summarized in Table 7, and Table 8 summarizes the designated orbiting points for these aircraft.

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