Atomic Vet Recalls the Bikini Bomb Tests 70 Years Ago In July 1946, millions of people around the world waited anxiously by their radios for broadcasts of the results of the first postwar atomic bomb tests code-named Operation CROSSROADS. William L. McGee, Gunner¿s Mate in the U.S. Navy, was one of the 42,000 military, scientific, and civilian personnel assembled at the Bikini Atoll test site in the Marshall Islands. He witnessed Crossroads from the heavy cruiser USS Fall River (CA-131), Flagship for the Target Fleet. McGee has written a personal account to coincide with the 70th anniversary, Operation Crossroads ¿ Lest We Forget! An Eyewitness Account, Bikini Atomic Bomb Tests 1946. A noted WWII military historian known for a spare and straightforward writing style, McGee tells the reader what it was like to be at what scientists considered the most significant event of the twentieth century¿from the plan that was comparable to a major wartime battle plan, to the build-up, the rehearsals, the tests, and to the all-important later lessons learned. William L. McGee has garnered critical praise for his World War II military histories including his memoir within a history, Bluejacket Odyssey, 1942¿1946: Guadalcanal to Bikini, and the acclaimed Pacific war trilogy, Amphibious Operations in the South Pacific in WWII.