A little more than 62 years ago, on Mar. 1, 1954, the United States detonated a dry fuel hydrogen bomb in the Marshall Islands of the Pacific Ocean during a secret test that was code-named “Castle Bravo.”
      The explosion was 15 times more powerful than calculated (equivalent to 15 million tons of dynamite) and became known as the most significant accidental radioactive contamination ever caused by the United States.
      Beyond the atolls of the Marshall Islands, traces of radioactive material were discovered in Australia, India, Japan, the United States and Europe. Nuclear fallout spread over roughly 7,000 square miles.
      The mushroom cloud that formed after the detonation grew to nearly four-and-a-half miles wide and reached a height of 130,000 feet six minutes. The crater left behind has a diameter of 6,510 feet and a depth of 250 feet.
      Watching the blast from a distance of just 20 miles, was longtime Boardman resident Thomas Petzinger, of Tanglewood Dr., the Grand Marshal and featured speaker at this year’112th annual Boardman Township Memorial Day observances.
      He had spent the days before the blast in upwards of 200 ft. of water around the Bikini Atoll, setting up measuring devices that monitored the blast. Back in the day when Petzinger served in the navy, there was no scuba equipment. Divers donned ‘hard hat’ gear that weighed upwards of 200 lbs., while they made their dives.
      Admittedly still ‘residually’ radioactive today, Petzinger says he is lucky to be alive.
      “Years after the blast, a lot of my shipmates had blood diseases, and many got cancer,” Petzinger notes, adding “But I didn’t. Luck saved me”
      Almost nonchalantly, Petzinger, now 86-years-old, says a couple of weeks after the blast, his ship pulled into Pearl Harbor for decontamination.
      “We didn’t think anything about it, and all of my shipmates stayed on-board while the decontamination work was completed,” he recalled this week.
      During his four-year stint in the active navy, Petzinger observed four h-bomb explosions.
      Today, he speaks not of their power, but of their beauty.
      “It was beautiful, magnificent and gorgeous. The colors that radiated from the blast were amazing,” he recalled this week.
      Born in Canton, Oh., Petzinger is a 1952 graduate and current member of the Board of Trustees of Mount Union College, where he was a track team captain and undefeated sprint champion during his junior and senior years.
      Upon graduation from college, Petzinger attended Naval Officer’s Candidate School in July, 1952 in Newport, Rhode Island, where he entered Deep Sea Diving School.
      Upon graduation, he was assigned to USS Mender salvage ship and during his tour of duty he helped clean Inchon Bay post Korean War, then worked at Bikini Atoll where he built underwater moorings for hydrogen atomic bomb testing.
      After regular duty, Petzinger served 25 years in the Naval Reserves, retiring as a captain.
      Locally, he is best-known as the owner of Pan Atlas Travel, where he worked until 2001.
      The 112th annual Boardman Memorial Day observances open at 10:00 a.m. on Mon., May 30 with a parade from Center Middle School to Boardman Park. Petzinger’s address is expected to get underway about 11:00 a.m.
     
      PICTURED: ENCAPSULATED IN A 200-lb. diving suit, Tom Petzinger prepares for a dive in 1954 to set instruments in the Marshall Islands that measured the force of hydrogen atomic bomb tests.