Don Damoth in front of Eniwetok Base Operations Building wearing the official uniform, khaki shorts and shirt, yellow unit baseball cap, black socks, and blue canvas shoes.

Living area. Silver buildings are BOQs. Officer's Club in upper left corner. Facilities included the movie theater, hand ball courts, craft shops, and Skeet Range. We also spent a lot of time wading in the shallows to pick up the beautiful sea shells. Then we made necklaces and other items from the shells..

There were numerous rusty landing craft and other shipwrecks left over from the invasion.

The main island was not really very large, but it was home to a lot of Air Force personnel. Civilian contractors lived on another island east of the main island. And of course there was a woman behind every tree. (Everything on the island had been flattened during the invasion.) Water on the outside of the atoll was very deep, so we always flew over the islands or inside the lagoon. The different colors of the water were beautiful.

The BOQs were more or less lined up with the prevailing wind, so we just left the doors and windows open and a nice breeze blew through to keep them cool. No air conditioning.

It was really a quite pretty place, Scuba Diving, snorkeling, and deep sea fishing were wonderful. We kept really busy, so time passed quickly. The flight crews were lucky because we had the opportunity to fly around the atoll, view the atomic bomb test sites, and land on the islands of the atoll to pick up Japanese fishing floats and giant Coconut Crabs. We couldn't eat the fish or anything else since everything was radioactive.. Since there were no tests going on, we flew scientists around the atoll for various tests, and supported a group that was trying to invent and test a shark repellent.

C-97 at Eniwetok