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Nuclear Test Film - Operation Sandstone
49 kt · Apr 15, 1948 · Enewetak Atoll · 3 Hiroshimas
Operation Sandstone (1948, Enewetak Atoll) was a weapons-laboratory series rather than a military exercise — three shots, X-Ray, Yoke and Zebra, that proved the levitated-pit design and roughly doubled the yield-to-weight efficiency of the American arsenal. The results let the U.S. build far more weapons from the same scarce fissile material.
Aftermath
The Enewetak people had already been displaced in 1947 and moved to Ujelang, a smaller, poorer atoll. Sandstone's efficiency gains accelerated the arms race; the design principles it confirmed underpinned every fission weapon that followed.