Bill Harper: Interview

2009-10-10

Harper, Bill

Bill Harper, Operation Ivy, Post WW II (Interviewed Oct. 10, 2010) Bill Harper does not have any real war stories to tell from his two hitches and more than five years in military service, but the one that he does tell is indeed a witness to history. November 1st, 1952, from the deck of the USS Estes near Eniwetok Island in the Marshall Islands, Bill Harper was one of those who watched the result of “Operation Ivy” -- the very first Hydrogen Bomb Explosion. Bill Harper has never discussed his specific duties in regard to Operation Ivy, and he never will. But he can describe in detail the incredible site and effect of the detonation of a bomb some 500 times more powerful than the Atomic Bomb that ended World War II some seven years earlier. And there are other fascinating stories to tell... like how he got to Texas by sailing down the Illinois and the Mighty Mississippi Rivers from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico.

KAMU-TV (Television station : College Station, Tex.); Turbiville, Tom

MovingImage; interview; Oral histories

Harper, Bill; Veterans--United States--Interviews; United States. Navy; Operation Ivy, Marshall Islands, 1952

Veterans of the Valley

Collections

English

In copyright-educational use permitted; For more information, see http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/

Items in this collection were donated to Cushing Memorial Library and Archives in 2017 by Tom Turbiville
Creation/Production Credits
From "Veterans of the Valley," a television series created by host Tom Turbiville and produced at KAMU-TV’s studio on the Texas A&M University, College Station campus
Local Note
reformatted digital

Catalog Key: 03-VOTV-Harper_Bill-video