Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Operation Redwing


Frelon Jury Pennington was a career military man, serving in both the Army and the Air Force. In 1956 while serving in the Air Force, Frelon participated in the historic Operation Redwing in the Pacific Ocean. He was one of about 10,000 military and civilian personnel, along with a handful of news media, that witnessed Operation Redwing, and Frelon received the above certificate to commemorate the event and his participation. Operation Redwing was a series of tests conducted by a joint task force over several weeks on second-generation nuclear weapons. The tests, which took place in the Marshall Islands near the Bikini and Enewetak atolls, were named after American Indian tribes, thus the picture of the Indian and teepee on the certificate probably due to the fact that some of the explosions were reminiscent of "smoke signals." In 1963, there was a treaty signed by the U.S. that prohibited such nuclear testing and no further tests were conducted.

An explosion of the Seminole nuclear test weapon on June 6, 1956

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Grateful to you for remembering Uncle Frelon and the others who endured this. Wonder how many others could contribute this to cancer. Alot of men I bet.

Don Dulaney said...

Absolutely Awesome Post!!!!Enough said!