Bankston, Jay

Jay Bankston was born December 23, 1926 in Louisiana, died April 22, 1997 in Bisbee, Arizona. Marine Sgt. Jarrell M. “Jay” Banskton served on active duty with the United States Marines from July 1944 to October 1947 and from July 1950 to May 1951. He served aboard the USS Albemarle, a seaplane base in the Marshall Islands in July 1946 where he worked on the assembly and handling of test units for nuclear detonations. The collection covers a court case and other documentation about radioactive fallout and its effects. Bankston used the material to submit a case for compensation to the Veterans Administration for a cancerous tumor he believed was caused by exposure to radiation during the “Operation Crossroads” detonation in July of 1946 in the Marshall Islands.