Lost letters from Bikini Atoll

Join the Navy and see the world!

     That was the sentiment that 18-year-old John Kelley had when he enlisted in 1945. And see the world he did. Within a year, Kelley was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, more than 5,000 miles away from home.

     His ship, the USS Arkansas, had brought him to Bikini Atoll, a chain of 23 tiny islands that created a deep lagoon far away from any major shipping lanes.

     “I suppose you wonder what we are doing out here,” Kelley wrote to his family on June 16, 1946. “Well, we are just sitting out here in a lagoon about 2 1/2 or 3 miles from Bikini, waiting for Queen Day. That is the day we abandon ship. We go aboard the P.A. Rockridge and wait for Able Day. That is the first bomb which will be dropped on the first of July or as soon after that as the B29 can see the target ship Navada.”

Read the full article in the November 5 edition of the Hampton Chronicle.