- The US Navy gathered 95 captured and surplus warships at Bikini Atoll. They wanted to know what nukes do to a fleet.
Prinz Eugen, a heavy cruiser that fought alongside Bismarck at the Denmark Strait, was anchored right in the blast zone. Compared to other German cruisers, she was lucky — Germany had far worse luck with the name Blucher, which seemed cursed across centuries.
Test Able. July 1, 1946. Air-dropped. 23 kilotons. Ships sank. Ships burned. Prinz Eugen? Fine.
Test Baker. July 25. Underwater detonation this time. A column of water 2,000 feet high. Prinz Eugen? Still floating.
The ship was now so contaminated that boarding parties couldn’t stay long enough to patch a small leak in the hull. Minutes at a time, then they had to leave.
The Navy towed her to Kwajalein Atoll. The leak got worse.
On December 22, 1946, Prinz Eugen rolled over and sank in shallow water. She survived two atomic bombs and sank because of a leak nobody could get close enough to fix.
Her stern still sticks out of the water at Kwajalein. You can see it on Google Maps.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Prinz Eugen
- Wikipedia: Operation Crossroads
- Delgado, James P. Nuclear Dawn: The Atomic Bomb from the Manhattan Project to the Cold War. Osprey, 2009.
- Garzke, William H., and Robert O. Dulin. Battleships: Axis and Neutral Battleships in World War II. Naval Institute Press, 1985.
