Operation TUMBLER-SNAPPER consisted of eight nuclear shots in two phases. The TUMBLER phase was of primary concern to the Department of Defense, which called for airdropped nuclear weapons tests. The SNAPPER second phase was a set of experiments conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission and the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory to help improve effects of nuclear weapons.

Able, an airdrop event on April 1, 1952, produced a yield of one kiloton. One of the experiments involved an analysis of the shock waves produced by the detonation. The Baker blast on April 15, 1952, with a one kiloton yield, also produced weapons effects data.

The news media was invited to view the Charlie nuclear detonation, a first at the Nevada Proving Ground. They watched from “News Nob,” about seven miles away. Also, approximately 2,000 Army personnel, including paratroopers, conducted maneuvers beneath the mushroom cloud. The 31-kiloton explosion on April 22, 1952, was one of the largest ever conducted in Nevada to that date.

With the 19-kiloton Dog shot on May 1, 1952, the Marines got their turn at a nuclear exercise.

They loaded into their trucks and drove toward ground zero until intolerable radiation levels forced them to abort the mission.

The Easy shot of 12 kilotons on May 7, 1952, provided scientists the opportunity to record photographically the birth of the blast measured in milliseconds. That is all the time scientists had before entire top of the tower was consumed by the fireball.

The sixth shot, Fox, was an 11-kiloton weapons development related test watched on May 25, 1952, by about 1,000 military observers from a distance of 7,000 yards. The soldiers were conducting radiation monitor training. A military display area filled by jeeps, tanks, machine guns, and artillery pieces was established almost under the shot tower, and all of the hardware was demolished.

The last two shots in TUMBLER-SNAPPER, both weapons development related, were George, 15 kilotons on June 1, 1952; and How, 14 kilotons, on June 5, 1952.

About the narrator:

Reed Hadley narrated this film.

Parallel to his public life as a radio, television, and movie star — with the credit of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame — Reed Hadley worked in a top secret military role as a presenter for Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (AFSWP) films.

AFSWP produced films through the United States Air Force Lookout Mountain Laboratory located in Hollywood, California. These AFSWP films covered analysis and documentary archives in nuclear weapons testing, special weapons systems development, as well as Civil Defense films. A key role of the laboratory was to produce films for national defense projects archives, military training films, and documentation for top secret oversight and appropriations committees of United States Congress.

“Military Participation on TUMBLER-SNAPPER” was produced for documenting the AFSWP nuclear weapons tests coded in TUMBLER-SNAPPER, for top secret committees of United States Congress.

This film was not sanitized/edited for declassification until 1997, years after the end of the Cold War. The declassification tags are at the beginning of the film, to document that this film has been carefully screened to remove data considered secret to national defense experts. If the sound cuts out at times into silence, it is not a flaw in the film, but a censoring block of secret data edited out of the film.

In 1951, the Army, working with the Atomic Energy Commission, carried out the Desert Rock Exercises, an experiment to “dispel much of the fear and uncertainty surrounding atomic radiation and the effects of gamma and x-rays.”

A tent encampment was set up about 27 miles from where the atomic explosions were detonated on the Nevada Proving Grounds. The encampment housed about 5,000 Army soldiers, civilian observers and technicians. Troops spent hours in classes receiving training in radiation and nuclear weapons effects.

The following is a recorded interview between a sergeant and a training officer prior to a blast:

Question. “How many of your men would volunteer to go up and be in the
foxholes?” (one-half mile from ground zero)

Answer. “I guess about half a dozen.”

Question. “It’s quite a loud noise when that bomb goes off … would it do
them any harm?”

Answer. “No sir, not the noise, no.”

Question. “How about the radiation? Do you think there is much danger?”

Answer. “Radiation is the least of their worries that the men are thinking
about.”

Question. “I think most thought radiation was the greatest danger, didn’t
they? Where did they learn differently?”

Answer. “They were, prior to our instructions here. We received a very
thorough briefing.”