Bikini Atoll

Bomb Testing and Relocation

Bikini Atoll is best known as the site of U.S. nuclear testing between 1946 and 1958, during which 23 nuclear devices were detonated on the atoll, including the 15 megaton “Bravo” hydrogen bomb. As such, Bikini Atoll is often remembered as a symbol of U.S. imperialism in the Pacific Region, primarily for the forced relocation of the atoll's inhabitants, the destruction of the atoll and lingering effects of the radiation that prevent the peoples' return.

For its Project Crossroads, the U.S. military needed a large, remote test site that protected the U.S. population from radiation, in order to test the effectiveness of nuclear weapons against naval fleets as well as serve as a demonstration of military and technological prowess. Bikini Atoll was considered an ideal location for these and other reasons, except that it was inhabited.

The U.S. military characterized Bikini Atoll as a marginal environment incapable of providing a healthy standard of living for its inhabitants, and sought to move them to nearby Rongerik Atoll amid considerable fanfare. Although the U.S. military indicated that Rongerik was essentially identical to Bikini, their assessments ran counter to the perceptions of the Bikinians themselves. Contrary to the claims of the military, the people of Bikini atoll had strong cultural ties to the Atoll, having lived there for over 1,000 years. They viewed the area as a rich resource where their ancestors were buried, in contrast to the considerably smaller Rongerik that was viewed as inhabited by a maleficent spirit that had poisoned the food resources and consequently remained uninhabited over the same timespan. Indeed, within two months after relocation to Rongerik in early 1946, the Bikinians complained of inadequate food and water resources and were requesting repatriation to Bikini Atoll. Their plight was ignored by the military until 1948, after an anthropologist revealed that the Bikinians had been suffering from starvation and ciguatera poisoning (resulting from the consumption of fish that have fed upon toxic marine algae). The military relocated the Bikinians first to a camp on Kwajalein, and then to the island of Kili, which was smaller than Rongerik. Today, roughly one-third of the 3,100 Bikinians live on Kili, and the rest are scattered through the Marshall Islands.

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