Whitefish resident recalls wartime experience

After flying through the mushroom cloud of the first hydrogen bomb, Warren Scott is surprised he’s still here.

The 92-year old Whitefish resident rises every morning and heads to the Whitefish Community Center for a cup of coffee and some conversation.

What people don’t know about the good-humored Scott is that he was a pilot in the Army Air Corps and Air Force for decades, serving during three major conflicts. But for him, it’s just his life.

“I guess I’m not sure what people want to know,” Scott said. “It’s just pretty normal to me.”

He remains humble about his experiences, but when prompted, he reveals that he was one of a few pilots present at the detonation of the first multi-megaton thermonuclear weapon in Operation Ivy.

On Oct. 31, 1952, days before Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president in a landslide, “Mike” was detonated on Elugelab Island in the Enewetak Atoll in the South Pacific.

Scott, then line chief of a group of 16 F-84G Thunderjets, was instructed to fly through the mushroom cloud to collect air samples from the cloud.

“Mike,” weighing in at 10.4 megatons of TNT (or more than 500 times the yield of the bomb dropped on Nagasaki) was at the time the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated.

“Our airplanes had special tanks with special filters on them,” Scott said. “We would fly through the cloud in pairs every 15 minutes collecting data.”

He remembers a “smart-ass” who was instructed not to use autopilot in the cloud because it might fail. He used it anyway and his plane went into a death spin and plunged into the waters of the atoll.

“We were in lead suits because of the radiation so he couldn’t eject or it would just have been the same thing,” Scott said. “The element leader followed him, flared out, and landed on Enewetak.”

The bomb was so powerful it destroyed Elugelab Island, leaving an underwater crater two kilometers wide and 50 meters deep.

While the loss of pilot Jimmy Robinson was regrettable, the sensors picked up valuable data that would be used by scientists and policy-makers for years.

“We got back to Kwajalein Navy Base and they put the Geiger counters on me,” Scott said. “Then they took five hours in the shower to scrub me and wash me down. I guess it worked because I’m still here.”

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, on May 21, 1923, Scott took some radio courses in civilian life before trying to join the fledgling Army Air Corps. That branch actually overestimated how many men it could support, so it let Scott go. He then went to radio school at Scott Field in Illinois because of his past experience with electronics.

He rejoined the air force and married Dorothy in 1943, not long before shipping overseas.

“Dorothy and I were married 65 years in December of 2008,” Scott said. “In January 2009 she died. I think all I time I spent away from her was how she was able to put up with me for so long.”

He arrived in England and continued training in C-47s with the 439th Troop Carrier Group.

Scott’s first taste of combat was flying the 101st Airborne Division above Normandy on D-Day. He also dropped paratroopers from the 17th, 82nd and other airborne divisions in Southern France, Operation Market-Garden in The Netherlands and over the Rhine into Germany.

The 439th was en route to the Pacific when the atomic bombs were dropped, ending the war. Scott was decommissioned in 1945 and took some college courses before re-enlisting in 1947.

He transferred to fighters in 1949 and served with multiple outfits and with strategic command before finally retiring in 1964 at the rank of Chief Master Sergeant.

Dorothy and Warren spent retirement years in Santa Barbara, California, and came to Whitefish in 2000 to be closer to their son, Toby. Dorothy suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and wanted to be close to their only child, a successful sound engineer.

Scott admits he was concerned about the radiation he went through that October morning in the Pacific. He and Dorothy stopped at one child, afraid of giving birth to one who could be impacted by Scott’s radiation.

“I’ve survived cancer,” he said. “I used to be as hairy as an ape, but I’m not any more. I don’t go to the VA very much. I’m not worried about it any more.”

And though he traveled above the azure seas of the Pacific, to small villages in France and England, to the bustling cities of Japan and the deserts of North Africa, he makes no mistake about where his heart lies.

“Of all the places I’ve been to, none of them are better than this one.”

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.