Daily Princetonian, Volume 70, Number 30, 13 March 1946 — Physics Department Will Send Five Men To Bikini Bomb Test [ARTICLE]
In 1946, the Princeton University Physics Department sent five representatives to the nuclear bombing tests, code named Operation Crossroads, at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The representatives consisted of both students and faculty and included Lawrence L. Rauch, D.D. Richards, James Hagadorn, Charles Baechler, and James Robinson.
The bomb tests were the first series of post-war nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean by the Joint Army and Navy Task Force. Princeton had already been involved in nuclear testing at this time as Princeton’s Palmer Physical Laboratory was contracted by the government for nuclear research. The Princeton representatives for the Pacific bombing were following up the contribution made to the development of the atomic bomb by Professors Smythe, Wigner, and Wheeler.