Nuclear underwater explosion test (16 gifs)

In July 1946, the United States conducted two atomic tests at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. The tests, codenamed Able (an atmospheric explosion) and Baker (underwater), were among the very first of the more than 1,000 tests that the U.S. would conduct over the next decades.

The Baker test contaminated all the target ships. It was the first case of immediate, concentrated local radioactive fallout from a nuclear explosion. Chemist Glenn Seaborg, the longest-serving chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, called Baker “the world’s first nuclear disaster.”

No one knew how devastating the bomb actually was, so that is why you see captured enemy ships so close to the blast. Truman cancelled the next nuclear test because of the surprise and damage.