Optimum HOB is the cube root of the yield in kt times the optimum HOB for a 1kt weapon, so a one megaton device would have HOB of 6500 feet, and a 1.7kt would be ~800 feet. A 5 megaton cracker would be 11,000 feet.
They wanted to show the Soviets that we were willing to pop a nuke over our cities to get one of their bombers, or a formation of bombers.
I bet those guys were not fully briefed. Lots of the “volunteers” were not.
What was it called, something like ‘Operation Smoky’
From their remarks, they understood exactly what was happening. I assume they were brass, which accounts for their enthusiasm. I wonder how they made out. I suppose if they didn't wait around for that cloud to settle on them, they might have been OK. I guess this is where "fully briefed" comes in. In the early tests, the hazards of radioactive fallout were not given the respect they required, to say the least, but by 1957, I would have thought they were more generally understood. Maybe it was a few more years before "fallout" became a bugaboo.