Wednesday, June 26, 1946 Press To See Bomb By Television; Holiday Atmosphere Aboard Ship, The Appalachian, flagship of a wartime amphibious force, dubbed "The Big Apple" by her crew, is headquarters for press, radio and photographer correspondents going to observe the Bikini Atoll atomic, bomb test in the Marshall Islands early in July. BY WHXIAM II. HESSLER. (The Enquirer's Foreign Kewi Analyst) (Copyright, the Cincinnati Enquirer) JVi'nfA Of A Series. ABOARD USS APPALACHIAN, ENROUTE TO BIKINI ATOLL: Steaming in an unvarying triangle, the Appalachian, Panamint and Blue Ridge, amphibious com-mand ships of Operation Crossroads, are moving into the middle Pacific With cargoes of newsmen, official United Nations chairs to confirm that the war is really over. The Appalachian, designated by the Navy as GC-1, is a veteran of several amphibious landings in the Pacific. She was the first of a class of ships built especially to serve as floating headquarters for the commander of an amphibious operation. Consequently, she is fitted with unusually good communication facilities, indicated by the maze of radio and television aerials and antennas above her superstructure. These facilities, expanded for the present operation, make the Appalachian ideal for a press ship, There are spaces fitted out as and then a correspondent is seen surreptitiously refreshing his vocabulary from Smyth's report on atomic energy. For many of us aboard, this is a jovial reunion. Mike Johnson, of the New York Sun, with whom I went through the Iwo Jima cam paign aboard the Lexington, turned up in the stateroom next to mine. Most of tha correspondents aboard covered some of the battlefronts, and many of, them in the Pacific Of these a good share are old acquaintances from CicCPac head quarters at Guam. NEXT: Supply Problems in Operation Crossroads.)
