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Contact Info
Home Town Philadelphia, PA
Last Address Vineland, N.J.
Date of Passing Jan 01, 2016
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Last Known Activity:
CE/EM 1/c Robert Earl Loyle, USN
Construction Electrician, Seabees WWII with 22nd Marines
Shipboard Electrician and witnessed the A-Bomb Tests at Bikini Atoll
Also served in the Army as a high speed Morse code interceptor
Bob was born on October 26, 1924 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He left home at the age of sixteen, making his way out to California and finding work with the Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey circus. Bob worked as an electrician’s assistant, raising the tents and light poles with the elephants and manning the spotlights during shows.
As soon as Bob turned seventeen he headed back east and joined the U.S. Navy at Quonset Point, Rhode Island. His electrician's experience made him an ideal candidate for the newly formed USN Construction Battalion. In January 1942 Bob shipped out to Bora Bora with 295 of his mates; they were the very first Seabees. His battalion spent part of the war as part of the 22nd Marines and saw action in the Marshall Islands. He reenlisted in the Navy after the war and subsequently was shipped back out to the South Pacific and served on board the U.S.S. LCI(G) 455 (Landing Craft Infantry Gunboat). He served on the U.S.S. Gunston Hall (LSD-5) and took part in Operation Crossroads in the Bikini Atoll. He finished out his enlistment on the U.S.S. Kermit Roosevelt (ARG-16).
Once his service in the Navy ended, Bob spent a couple of years working various jobs out west. In 1950 he enlisted in the U.S. Army with the hopes of being assigned to a construction battalion in Europe. His high scores on the entrance aptitude exam however, resulted in his recruitment into the U.S. Army Security Agency. Bob trained in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as a high speed Morse code interceptor. His assignment after training was Clark’s Air Force Base in the Philippines; right back to the South Pacific.
Operation Crossroads (Bikini Atoll)
From Month/Year
January / 1946
To Month/Year
December / 1946
Description Operation Crossroads was a pair of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. They were the first nuclear weapon tests since Trinity in July 1945, and the first detonations of nuclear devices since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. The purpose of the tests was to investigate the effect of nuclear weapons on warships.
The Crossroads tests were the first of many nuclear tests held in the Marshall Islands, and the first to be publicly announced beforehand and observed by an invited audience, including a large press corps. They were conducted by Joint Army/Navy Task Force One, headed by Vice Admiral William H. P. Blandy rather than by the Manhattan Project, which had developed nuclear weapons during World War II. A fleet of 95 target ships was assembled in Bikini Lagoon and hit with two detonations of Fat Man plutonium implosion-type nuclear weapons of the kind dropped on Nagasaki, each with a yield of 23 kilotons of TNT (96 TJ).
The first test was Able. The bomb was named Gilda after Rita Hayworth's character in the 1946 film Gilda, and was dropped from the B-29 Superfortress Dave's Dream of the 509th Bombardment Group on July 1, 1946. It detonated 520 feet (158 m) above the target fleet and caused less than the expected amount of ship damage because it missed its aim point by 2,130 feet (649 m). The second test was Baker. The bomb was known as Helen of Bikini and was detonated 90 feet (27 m) underwater on July 25, 1946. Radioactive sea spray caused extensive contamination. A third deep-water test named Charlie was planned for 1947 but was canceled primarily because of the United States Navy's inability to decontaminate the target ships after the Baker test. Ultimately, only nine target ships were able to be scrapped rather than scuttled. Charlie was rescheduled as Operation Wigwam, a deep-water shot conducted in 1955 off the California coast.
Bikini's native residents agreed to evacuate the island, and were evacuated on board the LST-861, with most moving to the Rongerik Atoll. In the 1950s, a series of large thermonuclear tests rendered Bikini unfit for subsistence farming and fishing because of radioactive contamination. Bikini remains uninhabited as of 2015, though it is occasionally visited by sport divers. Planners attempted to protect participants in the Operation Crossroads tests against radiation sickness, but one study showed that the life expectancy of participants was reduced by an average of three months. The Baker test's radioactive contamination of all the target ships was the first case of immediate, concentrated radioactive fallout from a nuclear explosion. Chemist Glenn T. Seaborg, the longest-serving chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, called Baker "the world's first nuclear disaster."
My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
January / 1946
To Month/Year
December / 1946
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2020
Personal Memories
Memories As soon as Bob turned seventeen he headed back east and joined the U.S. Navy. His electrician's experience made him an ideal candidate for the newly formed USN Construction Battalion. In January 1942 Bob shipped out to Bora Bora with 295 of his mates; they were the very first Seabees. His battalion spent part of the war as part of the 22nd Marines and saw action in the Marshall Islands. He reenlisted in the Navy after the war and subsequently was shipped back out to the South Pacific. He served on the U.S.S. Gunston and took part in Operation Crossroads in the Bikini Atoll.
