Little Feller II and Little Feller I were code names for a set of

nuclear tests Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine nuclear weapons' effectiveness, yield, and explosive capability. Testing nuclear weapons offers practical information about how the weapons function, how detonations are affected by ...

undertaken by the United States at the

Nevada Test Site The Nevada National Security Site (N2S2 or NNSS), known as the Nevada Test Site (NTS) until 2010, is a United States Department of Energy (DOE) reservation located in southeastern Nye County, Nevada, about 65 miles (105 km) northwest of th ...

on July 7 and 17, 1962 as part of

Operation Sunbeam Operation Sunbeam (also known as Operation Dominic II) was a series of four nuclear tests conducted at the United States's Nevada Test Site in 1962. ''Operation Sunbeam'' tested tactical nuclear warheads; the most notable was the ''Davy Crocket ...

. They were both tests of stockpiled

W54 The W54 (also known as the Mark 54 or B54) was a tactical nuclear warhead developed by the United States in the late 1950s. The weapon is notable for being the smallest nuclear weapon in both weight and yield to have entered US service. It was ...

warheads, the smallest nuclear warheads known to have been produced by the United States, used in both the Davy Crockett warhead and the

Special Atomic Demolition Munition The Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM), also known as the XM129 and XM159 Atomic Demolition Charges, and the B54 bomb was a nuclear man-portable atomic demolition munition (ADM) system fielded by the US military from the 1960s to 1980s ...

. In Little Feller II (July 7), the warhead was suspended only three feet above the ground and had a yield equivalent to . In Little Feller I (July 17), the warhead was launched as a Davy Crockett device from a stationary 155 millimeter launcher and set to detonate between above the ground around from the launch point, with a yield of . This test was performed in conjunction with Operation Ivy Flats, a simulated military environment, and was observed by Attorney General

Robert F. Kennedy Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925June 6, 1968), also known by his initials RFK and by the nickname Bobby, was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 64th United States Attorney General from January 1961 to September 1964, ...

and presidential adviser General Maxwell D. Taylor. Little Feller I was the last near-ground atmospheric nuclear detonation conducted by the United States"Operation Storax"
, Carey Sublette, NuclearWeaponArchive.org (the high altitude Fishbowl tests concluded in November 1962 with a detonation at around altitude). All further tests were conducted underground, in accordance with the

Partial Test Ban Treaty The Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) is the abbreviated name of the 1963 Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, which prohibited all nuclear weapons testing, test detonations of nuclear weapons exce ...

. An additional footnote is

Operation Roller Coaster Operation Roller Coaster was a series of four nuclear tests conducted jointly by the United States and the United Kingdom in 1963, at the Nevada Test Site. The tests did not involve the detonation of any nuclear weapons. Instead, their purpose ...

. Although this later series of tests involved no true nuclear detonation, they did disperse radioactive material using conventional explosives and thus may alternatively be considered the last aboveground nuclear test.

References

External links

"The Davy Crockett"
from the

Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as simply Brookings, is an American research group founded in 1916. Located on Think Tank Row in Washington, D.C., the organization conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in ec ...

* Video of th
M-388 Davy Crockett Nuclear TestOperation Ivy Flats
government film (1962) {{US Nuclear Tests Nevada Test Site nuclear explosive tests 1962 in Nevada July 1962 events in the United States