[tz] Time on Johnston Island

Paul Eggert eggert at cs.ucla.edu
Thu Mar 13 04:43:28 UTC 2014


Thanks for the heads-up, which makes it pretty clear that Johnston 
diverged from Hawaii, at least onboard nearby ships while the atomic 
tests were being done (Johnston island itself was evacuated, I presume). 
  I pushed the attached patch to the experimental repository.
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From 33c55fc2911a5bb5f4f18817b88f25c1a2341869 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Paul Eggert <eggert at cs.ucla.edu>
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 21:31:26 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] * australasia, NEWS: Comment re Johnston Island time in the
 1960s.

(Thanks to Lyle McElhaney.)
---
 NEWS        |  2 ++
 australasia | 21 ++++++++++++++++++---
 2 files changed, 20 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index cefa3b3..f75989c 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -9,6 +9,8 @@ Unreleased, experimental changes
     to Donald MacQueen.)  Instead, the Microsoft Windows Store app
     library supports them.
 
+    Add comments about Johnston Island time in the 1960s.
+    (Thanks to Lyle McElhaney.)
 
 Release 2014a - 2014-03-07 23:30:29 -0800
 
diff --git a/australasia b/australasia
index f7fa628..7da856d 100644
--- a/australasia
+++ b/australasia
@@ -763,14 +763,29 @@ Zone Pacific/Funafuti	11:56:52 -	LMT	1901
 
 # Johnston
 #
-# From Paul Eggert (2013-09-03):
+# From Paul Eggert (2013-03-11):
+# Sometimes Johnston kept Hawaii time, and sometimes it was an hour behind.
+# Details are uncertain.  We have no data for Johnston after 1970, so
+# treat it like Hawaii for now.
+#
 # In his memoirs of June 6th to October 4, 1945
 # <http://www.315bw.org/Herb_Bach.htm> (2005), Herbert C. Bach writes,
 # "We started our letdown to Kwajalein Atoll and landed there at 5:00 AM
 # Johnston time, 1:30 AM Kwajalein time."  This was in June 1945, and
 # confirms that Johnston kept the same time as Honolulu in summer 1945.
-# We have no better information, so for now, assume this has been true
-# indefinitely into the past.
+#
+# From Lyle McElhaney (2014-03-11):
+# [W]hen JI was being used for that [atomic bomb] testing, the time being used
+# was not Hawaiian time but rather the same time being used on the ships,
+# which had a GMT offset of -11 hours.  This apparently applied to at least the
+# time from Operation Newsreel (Hardtack I/Teak shot, 1958-08-01) to the last
+# Operation Fishbowl shot (Tightrope, 1962-11-04).... [See] Herman Hoerlin,
+# "The United States High-Altitude Test Experience: A Review Emphasizing the
+# Impact on the Environment", Los Alamos LA-6405, Oct 1976
+# <http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/docs1/00322994.pdf>.
+# See the table on page 4 where he lists GMT and local times for the tests; a
+# footnote for the JI tests reads that local time is "JI time = Hawaii Time
+# Minus One Hour".
 #
 # See 'northamerica' for Pacific/Johnston.
 
-- 
1.8.5.3


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