Tatarewicz: We’re looking at the Bikini Diary. Katz: It starts the 13th of September, 1945, and goes through 21 November, 1946.

Tatarewicz: These are five bound approximately folio sized volumes, with clippings, some letters and carbons, and handwritten notes. Katz: It’s the only record of what we did. I kept this diary because I was dealing with a very odd colonel, since deceased. He would make decisions on one day, changing a contrary decision he’d made the previous day, and didn’t believe it till I’d show him in the diary.

Tatarewicz: Your group was called upon to document the tests in Bikini.

Katz: Yes, doing scientific photography. The whole thing, I had a fascinating experience with him at the time. One of the major lessons of bureaucracy I learned in this exercise. He said, « I want a plan, what planes you need, what cameras you’re going to take, what instruments are needed, what kind of people you’re going to need. » So I came back in two weeks and gave him a plan involving two C-54 airplanes, and approximately 30 people from Wright Field. All of us were at that time at the height of our physical powers and we were all young and we really knew the camera business. We knew how to take pictures. We knew how to analyze scientific photography. So I said, « We’ll do all this, we’ll fly the airplanes, we’ll run the photo lab, develop the film, calibrate the scientific photography, write reports, we’ve got enough guys to do that. It will be very elegant. It can be done with a few guys if they’re the right guys. » So he looked at me very strangely and said, « I don’t want an elegant operation, I want a big outfit. » He got that outfit, those two airplanes–we needed only one airplane, but in case one was going to be down for a period–the two instrumented identically. We had spectrophotometers. We had photometers. We did all kinds of things. And he had 950 guys in that outfit.

Tatarewicz: 950? This is just on the documentation?

Katz: In the photographic unit attached to 1.52. Tatarewicz: Just the photographic unit. I presume there were other people running around. Katz: 40,000 people in that Bikini test. Almost a thousand- in this photographic thing. I knew we could do it with 30. The net result was that, I wrote this up in a book I’ll show you, a book on science, RANDOM WALLKS IN SCIENCE, have you ever seen that KATZ-28 book?

Tatarewicz: Oh yes. Katz: Volume two is called MORE RANDOM WALKS IN SCIENCE, and this is in that book. Tatarewicz: I didn’t realize you had an entry in MORE RANDOM WALKS.

Katz: Yes, this particular story is told, and the 10 or so B29’s, plus the two C-54s. All the work was done by our two c54s. When you start building a big unit, first you need guys to handle the mail, and guys to keep attendance, guys to keep records on how much gas we were using, and all that. It’s crazy. I didn’t want a big outfit, we got a big outfit. I fought him every inch of the way.

https://www.si.edu/media/NASM/NASM-NASM_AudioIt-000006709DOCS.pdf

https://onthebanks.msu.edu/Exhibit/162-567-77/perry-m-thomas-collection/

https://projects.kora.matrix.msu.edu/files/162-565-6614/A005139.pdf