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Posted

Growing up, I used to love hearing my late uncle, Joseph A Pallante talk about his days in the US Navy aboard the USS Benner DD-807. Especially when he would talk about his days aboard her during his trip to Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands. There, in 1958 he participated in "Operation Hardtack I"— a 35-detonation series of atmospheric nuclear tests designed to evaluate new types of weapons, the effects of high-altitude explosions, and the new Polaris missile warhead prototype. Benner's assignments during these tests included weather observations, search and rescue, and scientific equipment recovery.

 

Here are some his personal items from those days- Neptune Certificate, Domain of the Golden Dragon, and Certificate of participation - citation will be posted later-if anyone knows who the folks who signed the certificate were, please feel free to post.

 

 

 

post-30395-0-01687900-1392947766.jpg

Posted

Domain of Neptunus Rex

 

[ A careless relative damaged these certificates when they removed them from the frames to send them to me after his passing]

post-30395-0-69274200-1392947886.jpg

Patchcollector
Posted

Interesting.Thanks for posting!

  • 1 year later...
Posted

btt for veterans day in memory of my late uncle and all the other Atomic Veterans out there both living and deceased.

Ultima Ratio Regum
Posted

Neat grouping- thanks for displaying it.

 

I don't know if you have this already or not, but the Defense Nuclear Agency report on Hardtack I is unclassified and available online.

 

The link opens a pdf of the "Operation Hardtack I, 1958" report:

 

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a136819.pdf

  • 1 month later...
Posted

just like to add this picture of my Uncle Joe to this thread-this is him in his later years.......

post-30395-0-33767800-1452302395.jpg

  • 8 months later...
Posted

Thanks Ron, yesterday marked 5 years since he passed- I had completely forgotten-til I woke up this am and realized it. My unk had some great stories about his time in Eniwetok and aboard the Benner.

  • 3 years later...
Posted

btt for veterans day in memory of my late uncle and all the other Atomic Veterans out there both living and deceased.

  • 1 year later...
Posted

btt for veterans day in memory of my late uncle and all the other Atomic Veterans out there both living and deceased.

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