Deseret's insignia showed it was not only an Army program but a joint operation with the Navy, Marines and Air Force.

Because Deseret Test Center oversaw the experiments, documents often call its overall testing program "Project Deseret."

Its small support navy was called "Project Shad." That was both an acronym for "Ship Habitation and Decontamination" studies and the name for small fish similar to herring.

The earliest at-sea testing mentioned in documents obtained occurred in 1956, and tests appear to have continued through the late 1960s.

For the experiments, Deseret Test Center obtained the use of two "liberty" ships, the mass-produced Merchant Marine cargo ships made during World War II. Tests also included five tug boats and the occasional use of submarines, jets, barges and assorted smaller vessels.

The idea, documents said, was to have various ships crisscross through germ and nerve agent clouds to collect information about exposure and decontamination. Crew members occupied protected spaces, and information was evaluated by on-board lab facilities.

RADIOACTIVE SHIPS

The liberty ships selected — the Granville S. Hall (with call letters YAG40) and the George Eastman (YAG39) — were uniquely configured and had a dubious history before Project Shad.

They were rigged in the early '50s so they could be steered by remote control so they could be "driven through downwind radiation clouds resulting from atmospheric detonations of nuclear devices" near Eniwetok and Bikini atolls, according to Guy Willis of Tennessee, who wrote about his work on the Hall in the mid '50s for a newsletter, "The Navy Liberty Ship Sailor."

Willis wrote that the crew, which reboarded the ship only hours after passing through such clouds to wash it down, "experienced considerable radiation exposure," especially during long voyages back to the United States.

Despite the radiation exposure, the Hall and Eastman were included in Deseret Test Center's navy, possibly because of the remote steering capability or because of their rigging with cages for test animals and lab equipment that would be needed again.

Still, Frank Tetro, who sailed on the Hall between 1966 and 1968, said the Hall would set off alarms at Pearl Harbor that were designed to detect radiation leaks from nuclear submarines. "Once they found out it was us, they would let us come on in," he said.

TRAINED FOR EXOTICS

Sailors selected for Project Shad operations had to obtain clearance to work with "secret" data and were sent to Dugway for special classified training.