Kewaskum, WI – Kewaskum-area Korean War veteran talks about testing of the Atom Bomb: Howard Laubenstein, 82, of Campbellsport was interviewed several years ago as he prepared to go on the Stars & Stripes Honor Flight.
In a one-on-one interview, Laubenstein talked about enlisting in the U.S. Air Force when he was 18 years old in November 1951.
Following basic training, much of Laubenstein’s service was surrounded in secrecy as he was flown in February 1953 to a base about 90 miles outside of Las Vegas.
His FBI clearance placed him at the Nevada Proving Ground, a nuclear test site.
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“I was going to test the Atom Bomb,” he said. During one of the tests, Laubenstein was seven miles from the detonation. “At the same time we had Army troops one mile from the detonation, they were dug in trenches,” he said about the location in Yucca Flat. “I suspect they wanted to see how they reacted to radiation.”
Laubenstein has a yellowed Las Vegas Sun newspaper from March 17, 1953, sitting on the table. ‘SHAMROCK’ TESTS UNDERWAY’ reads the bold headline. A photo below the banner shows a “Flaming ball of fire. Then fluffy white clouds.” The supporting article talks about “observers who crowded points high along Mt. Charleston’s Lee Canyon Range” and how on “a remote hillside over 500 newsmen, radio, TV, and newsreel representatives in pre-dawn hours this morning, stationed here to witness a nuclear explosion just four miles away.”
