William Sterling Parsons - Postwar Career

Postwar Career

In November 1945, King created a new position of Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Special Weapons, which was given to Vice Admiral Blandy. Parsons became Blandy's assistant. In turn, Parsons had two assistants of his own, Ashworth and Horacio Rivero, Jr. He also brought Greenbacker from Los Alamos to help set up the new office. Parsons was a strong supporter of research into the use of nuclear power for warship propulsion, but disagreed with Rear Admiral Harold G. Bowen, Sr., the head of the Office of Research and Inventions, who wanted the Navy to initiate its own nuclear project. Parsons felt that the Navy should work with the Manhattan Project, and arranged for Naval officers to be assigned to Oak Ridge. The most senior of them was his former classmate Rickover, who became assistant director there. They immersed themselves in the study of nuclear energy, laying the foundations for a nuclear-powered navy.

On 11 January 1946, Blandy was appointed to command Joint Task Force One (JTF-1), a special force created to conduct a series of nuclear weapon tests at Bikini Atoll, which he named Operation Crossroads, to determine the effect of nuclear weapons on warships. Parsons, who was promoted to the rank of rear admiral on 8 January 1946, became Blandy's Deputy Commander for Technical Direction and Commander Task Group 1.1. Parsons worked hard to make a success of the operation, which he described as "the largest laboratory experiment in history". In addition to the 95 target ships, there was a support fleet of more than 150 ships, 156 aircraft, and over 42,000 personnel.

Parsons witnessed the first explosion, Able, from the deck of the task force flagship, USS Mount McKinley. An airburst like the Hiroshima blast, it was unimpressive, and even Parsons thought that it must have been smaller than the Hiroshima bomb. It failed to sink the target ship, the battleship USS Nevada, mainly because it missed it by a considerable distance. This made it difficult to assess the amount of damage caused, which was the objective of the exercise. Blandy then announced that the next test, Baker, would occur in just three weeks. This meant that Parsons had to carry out the evaluation of Able simultaneously with the preparations for Baker. This time he assisted with the final preparations on USS LSM-60 before heading back to USS Cumberland Sound for the test. The underwater Baker explosion was no larger than Able, but the dome and water column made it look far more spectacular. However the real problem was the radioactive fallout, as Colonel Stafford L. Warren, the Manhattan Project's medical advisor, had predicted. The target ships proved impossible to decontaminate and, lacking targets, the test series had to be called off. For his part in Operation Crossroads, Parsons was awarded the Legion of Merit.

The Special Weapons Office was abolished in November 1946, and the Manhattan Project followed suit at the end of the year. A civilian agency, the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), was created by the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 to take over the functions and assets of the Manhattan Project, including development, production and control of nuclear weapons. The law provided for a Military Liaison Committee (MLC) to advise the AEC on military matters, and Parsons became a member. A joint Army-Navy organization, the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (AFSWP), was created to handle the military aspects of nuclear weapons. Groves was appointed to command the AFSWP, with Parsons and Air Force Major General Roscoe C. Wilson as his deputies. In this capacity, Parsons pressed for the development of improved nuclear weapons. During the Operation Sandstone series of nuclear weapon tests at Enewetak Atoll in 1948, Parsons once again served as deputy commander. Parsons hoped that his next posting would be to sea, but he was instead sent to the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group in 1949. However, in 1951 he finally returned to sea duty, this time as Commander, Cruiser Division 6, despite having never commanded a ship. Parsons and his cruisers conducted a tour of the Mediterranean showing the flag. He then became Deputy Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance in March 1952.