Interview with Ernest Benjamin Williams, March 26, 2004

Nevada Test Site Oral History Project University of Nevada, Las Vegas Interview with Ernest Williams March 26, 2004 Las Vegas, Nevada Interview Conducted By Christopher Nowicki © 2007 by UNLV Libraries Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews conducted by an interviewer/ researcher with an interviewee/ narrator who possesses firsthand knowledge of historically significant events. The goal is to create an archive which adds relevant material to the existing historical record. Oral history recordings and transcripts are primary source material and do not represent the final, verified, or complete narrative of the events under discussion. Rather, oral history is a spoken remembrance or dialogue, reflecting the interviewee’s memories, points of view and personal opinions about events in response to the interviewer’s specific questions. Oral history interviews document each interviewee’s personal engagement with the history in question. They are unique records, reflecting the particular meaning the interviewee draws from her/ his individual life experience. Produced by: The Nevada Test Site Oral History Project Departments of History and Sociology University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 89154- 5020 Director and Editor Mary Palevsky Principal Investigators Robert Futrell, Dept. of Sociology Andrew Kirk, Dept. of History The material in the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project archive is based upon work supported by the U. S. Dept. of Energy under award number DEFG52- 03NV99203 and the U. S. Dept. of Education under award number P116Z040093. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in these recordings and transcripts are those of project participants— oral history interviewees and/ or oral history interviewers— and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U. S. Department of Energy or the U. S. Department of Education. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 1 Interview with Ernest Williams March 26, 2004 Conducted by Christopher Nowicki Table of Contents Mr. Williams discusses his family history and memories of growing up in Nebraska during the 1930s. 1 World War II sparked strong reactions from Mr. Williams, contributing to his later decision to enlist in the United States Air Force. 6 Mr. Williams was assigned to the Air Force Special Weapons Project [ AFSWP] in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to work on the assembly and disassembly of nuclear weapons. 9 Security procedures and the need for secrecy affected the lives of those working on the AFSWP. 14 Mr. Williams recalls serving as a guard on an American ship transporting nuclear devices to England. 17 During the Korean War, Mr. Williams was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, where he worked as in the personnel department. 22 Upon leaving the Air Force, Mr. Williams was hired by the Atomic Energy Commission [ AEC] and was placed in charge of logistics at the Nevada Test Site. 25 Mr. Williams shares his reactions to witnessing his first atmospheric nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site. 31 Preparing for a nuclear test involved a demanding array of logistical requirements. Mr. Williams explains his role in managing logistics and the positive morale that allowed test site workers to complete their tasks. 34 Mr. Williams describes living in Mercury, as well as his experiences serving as duty officer for the Nevada Test Site. 38 While he was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base, Mr. Williams worked as a “ shill” in a Las Vegas casino. He shares his memories of visiting Las Vegas as a serviceman in the 1950s. 41 Mr. Williams later returned to Albuquerque, where he became a permanent AEC employee. 44 During Operation Redwing, Mr. Williams worked at both Enewetak and the Nevada Test Site. 47 Mr. Williams his personal management style and the need to create a positive attitude among test program personnel. 49 UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 1 Interview with Ernest Williams March 26, 2004 in Las Vegas, NV Conducted by Christopher Nowicki [ 00: 00: 00] Begin Track 2, Disk 1. Christopher Nowicki: For the record, would you please state your full name, your date of birth, and the city and state of your birth. Ernest Williams: I’m Ernest Benjamin Williams. I was born December 20, 1930 in a small town, Naponee, Nebraska, in the month of December. If you would be so kind, would you please talk a little bit about your life growing up in Nebraska. Growing up in Nebraska in the early 1930s, as you well probably realize, it was the Depression years. There weren’t many jobs available. I can remember my father and my mother being relatively poor people, not having very fancy clothes. I remember the dust storms at the age of three- and- a- half to four, when it was just like walking into the fog in the state of California off the coast. You could hardly see anything, and the drifts of dust would just come across the roads like snowdrifts. I remember one evening, I had to be somewheres around four to five years old, we went to a woody schoolhouse to attend the PTA which is held by the schools. It was a small play, and before the play was over everybody was telling us that the winds were blowing bad and not to try to go the east- west roads because they were blocked as if they were like snowdrifts. The dust was blowing so bad we had to take the north- south roads to get down to the river bottom, which was protected by trees and the river, in order to get east and west. When we got to the river bottom, we had a 1929 Dodge there was so much static electricity in the air, the car wouldn’t run. Had we had just sense enough to put the tire chains on the bumper and let them drag on the ground, why, the car would’ve ran. But we got to there and we stayed with the UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 2 Godekin family all night because we didn’t know any better. We had no idea what the problem was. [ 00: 05: 00] The dust storms were bad. I can remember one afternoon we were at our house— we lived three miles south of Naponee— and the dust storm came up. My third brother— there’s only four of us; I’m the youngest— my third brother came, probably a couple hundred feet from the house out by the chicken house [ where] I was playing, and he came and got me because I was not able to get back to the house because the dust was blowing bad. He had a pair of goggles on, they were glass with just a canvas goggles in those days, and came and got me and brought me back to the house. That evening the dust storm was so bad, and my mother had spaghetti and meatballs and a couple other items. It was coming in so bad into the house that my mother actually put tea towels— my mother would take sugar sacks and make them into tea towels— and she laid those over the top of all the food to keep the dust from getting down into the food. When you wanted some food, you lifted up the tea towel and you got the food out of it. And of course naturally my time comes to start school and at the age of seven I started elementary school, the first grade, at Red Top School. It just so happened that my mother had graduated from that school. She went to that school. All four of us boys all went to that school also. In 1942 my father and mother had the opportunity to move from one farm, which was south of Naponee by three miles, to move three miles east of Naponee. The farm was owned by some of our relatives and it was much better land to cultivate and of course we’re now in the beginning of World War II. Did your father work the farm as a farmer? Yes, my dad was a farmer for fifty- two years. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 3 And what did you grow? Basically grew alfalfa, corn, wheat, milo, pigs, and raised cattle. And raised cattle. And we moved to the new farm in late 1942. And during the war we got a lot more rain and we had excellent crops. You got to remember, we didn’t have any irrigation in those days. We depended upon Mother Nature to give us the moisture that we need for our crops. We had some excellent crops in those years. And I remember most of the farmers— from discussion, how much truth there is in it I don’t know— but they always kept saying, All the gunpowder that’s being fired, we’re getting a lot of good rain. Whether that had anything to do with it or not, I have no idea, but we had excellent crops. My oldest brother Warren enlisted into the U. S. Air Corps at age twenty- seven and went into the service and served during the entire war. Came home honorably discharged in early 1946. My other two brothers [ were] Walter and Orville. Walter was a mechanic but unfortunately during his small age, probably four, he stuck his hand into some equipment and lost some of his fingers, and so he was put in 4- F. In other words, he wasn’t able to handle a rifle properly because of the missing of his fingers. He continued to be a farm hand because all the young men have left now to go to the war and he’s in great demand to help the farmers. He worked many hours trying to help two or three different farmers get their crops done because they couldn’t hire anybody. There wasn’t anybody to be hired. My third brother had went to Oregon in Springfield and was in a logging mill. In those days we didn’t have the computer world. All the logs as they were being cut, there was a carriage in front of them and a man rode that carriage, and that’s how you slice off the logs into slabs. Most people couldn’t take the carriage because it just goes back and forth, back and forth, and UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 4 they would just get deathly sick. My brother was out in the pond with hobnail boots on feeding the logs into the mill, and he said, I’d sure like a chance at that. [ 00: 10: 00] Well, he got that opportunity. He rode the carriage and never got sick, and so he was given a deferment because he was cutting a lot of oak and the oak was being prepared into stocks for army rifles, so he was deferred because he was doing something for the defense of his country. We all came home, back together, in about 1946. He returned back from Oregon, and shortly after that, why, my oldest brother which was in World War II had a pilot’s license and unfortunately a sad accident happened. They were flying a private airplane and he got killed in an airplane accident in November 1947. My father wasn’t very well at this time. He had injured his back and basically was down in his back, I’ll call it a rocking chair— we didn’t have big lounge chairs in those days— and not able to do much. Well, my brother and I were basically doing the farming, because my oldest brother and I are both single— of course I’m not out of school yet— and we’re doing most of the farming. Well now it’s down to me. I’m at the level now being almost sixteen years of age, a junior in high school. So that would be 1947. That’s right, and I had entered into high school in the fall of 1945. And in late 1946, early 1947 my father took sick, and of course my brother got killed in November of 1947. And so I continued then to not only farm two hundred acres of cultivated land [ and] take care of a hundred head of hogs and a hundred head of cattle. My mother had probably around two hundred head of chickens. And I continued to do the farm and go to high school for my junior and senior year and graduated in May 1949. By this time my father is back on his feet to where he can begin to get UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 5 back on the tractor and able to do work, but I kept the farm going for two years and went to high school, and I got to tell you, it taught me one good thing: responsibility. Sounds like you were a very busy young man. I never participated much in athletics. I did play a little bit of basketball. I wasn’t big enough to play football so, you know, when I graduated out of high school I only weighed a whole sum of eighty- eight pounds, so I wasn’t big enough to play football. I did play some baseball. I was the catcher for our team in Naponee, and we had a great time at that. I graduated out of high school, Naponee High School, in May 1949. And my father, being back on his feet, recognizing I’ve graduated, now I need to get out and make a living also to get a little spending money. I applied to— just about seven miles from us was the Republican River, and it had been talked about for many years that they would start building a dam on the Republican River. I hired in with the Harlan County Construction Company and immediately was put in to the survey crew, and I started out as a chainman and then I became a rodman. I was relatively good in math in high school, and immediately I was just accepted into the survey crew. In that next two years I became instrument man— not chief of party, but instrument man— and I’m setting all the points for all the construction workers to build the forms to a 1,940- foot concrete spillway, with all the sluice gates and floodgate to release water from the dam. And then late 1950, we had to shut down in the fall because the winter months get so cold and it freezes, so you can’t pour concrete. And so as I remember, we shut down in early November 1950 and in December, just before Christmas, I got my draft notice. Well, Mr. Williams, if I may, before we discuss your entrance into the military, I’d like to ask you a little bit about some of your thoughts about World War II as you were going through [ it] as a young man in rural Nebraska. Obviously the entire country was caught up in the production and UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 6 [ 00: 15: 00] all the men were away fighting. Did you have any thoughts that you remember as a young man thinking about the war, how you thought it would turn out? Did you think that perhaps you would have a chance to participate? Yes, I was very interested in World War II, and only because my dad’s sister, which would be my aunt, but she’s older than my father, was very instrumental in my life. She used to be a school teacher and my dad and her would visit quite a bit about the war and she got me introduced to reading the Ernie Pyle column in the newspaper. I have to admit I really got enthused about World War II. There was no doubt in my mind and in my entire family that America should win. We recognized that it wasn’t going to be a short- term thing. It did have a major impact in the community. As I mentioned earlier, there wasn’t a lot of manpower around, so it meant a lot of the farmers basically were working fourteen, sixteen, seventeen hours on their own to get the crop done. But I’ve always had a great feeling for our country. I thought that as a young boy, maybe someday I will have my opportunity to serve my country. You have to remember, the beginning of World War II I was only eleven years old, so it’s quite a ways down the stream yet. but I’ve always taken an interest in the history of our country. Quite obviously. Do you recall where you were and when it was that you heard that the war in the Pacific was over because of the dropping of the bomb on Nagasaki? Yes I do. We were together, my father as well as my mother and my aunt, and we were listening to the radio at my aunt’s house. We heard that a few days before that, that they had dropped the bomb, but I don’t think any of us recognized how awesome the bomb was. I think we all recognized it was in some ways, I think, kind of like another bomb, but we also had that inkling that it was something greatly different. We had the feeling from the first one that was dropped UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 7 and we had that message on the radio that yes, it did a lot of destruction and that there was a lot of people killed. Please bear in mind, we didn’t have television yet. We had our ears glued to the radios. We heard that the second one had been dropped and that General Douglas MacArthur would be meeting on the USS Missouri to finalize the papers for bringing the war to an end. Not only my family but lots of my first cousins were in the service, and all of the families, the phone was ringing from one family to another, Gee, Harry, Warren, Robert and George all’s going to be coming home pretty soon, you know, and that’s just a few of my relatives that was in the service. But Gee, we’re going to get them home pretty soon. So eventually then what? You went on to work a little construction after working on the farm? I worked two years in the Harlan County Construction Company in the engineering section, basically in the survey crew, and as I said I got my draft notice and I then went up and enlisted because I didn’t want to be drafted. My oldest brother had enlisted in World War II. Chances are my brother, if he hadn’t enlisted, he probably wouldn’t have went to serve because he was almost twenty- seven years old when he enlisted, and the draft was nineteen through twenty- six. They normally didn’t draft anybody over twenty- six. If you were twenty- seven years old, they didn’t bother you. Was that a personal choice, that you felt you wanted to contribute, or what was the thinking behind enlisting after you got your draft notice? After I got my draft notice— and again no offense against the Army— I just felt that I wanted to serve because my brother had been in the service and I felt very loyal. [ 00: 20: 00] And I wanted to support my country. I went down to the Air Force and enlisted because I thought I really wanted to be an airplane mechanic and could do something that eventually, when I got back out of the service, that would give me a profession. Instead of being just an ordinary laboring UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 8 gentleman on a farm, why, I thought, gee, you know, if I could be an airplane mechanic, eventually hopefully maybe I could get into the airline industry, which was a good goal to look forward to. Well, we arrived in Omaha, Nebraska on the tenth of January and we were sworn in to the service and we got a train and went to San Anton’, Texas to Lackland Air Force Base which we though was going to be basic training. When we arrived there, there was such an influx of enlistees into the United States Air Force, and of course Lackland one of a few training centers, when we arrived down there they had accepted a lot of enlistees and so when we arrived we soon realized that there were probably at least ten thousand or more of us that they didn’t have facilities for us. They had put up tents for us to live in and unfortunately San Anton’, Texas in the middle part of January started getting cold and we didn’t have any heat. We had fourteen beds to a tent and there were canvas cots and we had two blankets, and that was basically it. And I have to tell you, when the temperatures get to twenty degrees, two blankets don’t hardly cut the mustard. So the first night we were pretty cold. A fellow by the name of John Hoback, which had a bachelor’s degree but also had enlisted in the Air Force, and he was from Omaha, Nebraska. And of course naturally I’m from Nebraska, and we set up and talked quite a bit of the night because it was cold, both recognizing that if it gets too cold and you’re asleep, that’s a good way to go to sleep and you freeze to death. Not that we were going to freeze to death but it crossed our minds, and so we chit- chatted quite a bit all night. The next night we slept very comfortable because we raided all the garbage cans and we got all the newspapers . We put the newspapers on top of the canvas of the cot, and then we put one blanket on top of that and then the second blanket we folded in half and put newspapers in the middle, We slept very comfortable the next night, you know, because it was insulation. Kept that cold from coming in. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 9 As time went on, we recognized we weren’t doing anything. They were asking us to march down to eat, and we did a little marching out on the quadrangle, but I kept thinking, you know, what are we going to train to do here? And then the sergeant would come in and he’d say, Well, you know, we just don’t have the facilities to do anything with you people yet. One afternoon the sergeant came in and he said, We’re going to give you a test. I think most of us wondered, What’s this all about? A lot of us had— because of our brothers or sisters that had been in the service— had kind of led us to believe that you don’t volunteer because it won’t be what you think you’re getting into. The gentleman said, We want you to take a test. I thought, gee, what can I do to go wrong on this? So I held up my hand and sure enough the gentleman was very honest with us, and it really turned out to be an aptitude test, in my humble feeling, mechanical and electrical and math. And of course any farm boy that was involved in this— and not that the children from larger cities couldn’t be sharp in that field— but I think the farm boys and particularly of my age had helped their fathers during World War II you couldn’t just go down to the local store and buy another part-- basically you had to go to the welding shop and get that part welded — and we’d repair the machinery. Well, I think that really enhanced all of us typical farm boys and helped us out in the mechanical area. Well, we scored high, and a couple days later [ 00: 25: 00] the sergeant came in and he said, Here are the scores, and all you, here’s the results, and started naming us off. He said, Four hours from now, you’re going to [ have] your duffle bag packed and you’re headed for Albuquerque, New Mexico. And did you have any idea at that point why you were going to Albuquerque, what was going on in Albuquerque at the time? When the sergeant explained to us that we were going to Albuquerque we asked him, What are we getting into? And [ he] said, I’m not at liberty to tell you. He said, You’ll find UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 10 out when you get there. So we had no knowledge of what we were getting into. And when we arrived by buses at Sandia base, we were immediately taken to some real nice quarters. We were allowed to have three men to a room, and boy, what a pleasure that was! And again, we fell out in the quadrangle a couple days later, early in the morning, probably like seven o’clock, and a lieutenant colonel came out in front of us. There was about 180 of us enlisted people, and he explained to us that we had some sheets of paper here that he wanted us to fill out. He was not at liberty to tell us what kind of a program it was going to be yet, but [ they] needed to do a background investigation. And if your background was clean and you hadn’t been in jail and you wasn’t an alcoholic prior to enlisting in the service, why, you probably didn’t have anything to worry about. And of course this long three- page documentation basically asked a lot of questions about your personal life, where you were born, and had you been in jail or had you been given any automobile tickets, and did you drink a lot, just typical questions that goes to make sure that your background is legitimate, that you mean well for your country. We filled all this out, and in my case I recognized that I hadn’t traveled any. I had been out of my hometown of Naponee to Denver and that was it. The gentleman said, If you haven’t traveled much, your clearance will probably come through quite rapidly. And sure enough my clearance came pretty rapidly. I received it and they called me in in the afternoon, and this is probably now March 1951, and he said, Your clearance has come through, Airman Williams. He said, Tomorrow morning you need to meet us and we’ll take you over to a special place. And so we met the next morning this civilian which was a civilian employee working for Sandia Corporation. We marched over with the sergeant and we went into an auditorium and he explained to us that, You gentlemen, you’re going to go to school here. It’s going to be for security and also UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 11 assembly and disassembly of nuclear weapons. I have to say my jaw probably dropped, because I had no idea. It’s six years since World War II. Having been greatly watching World War II and how it came to an end, recognizing that the nuclear industry is pretty high on the defense program, I just couldn’t believe that here’s a lot of us typical farm boys, we’re now going to [ have] a great change in our life because we’re going to be dealing with weapons that, in our humble feeling, was high on the priority list for the defense of our country. He said to us that we would be going to school not only to be a security guard but we’d also learn assembly and disassembly of nuclear weapons. Can you explain a little bit about some of the security aspects? I don’t know if there’s anything that you would be unable to tell us at this point. No, the security aspects basically was, the first thing he said to us was, We’re going to start training you in this field, and please bear in mind that you will not discuss this with anyone. [ 00: 30: 00] Amongst you— as enlistees, as servicemen, you can come back to the compound. We were given special badges which allowed us to get in to special areas, and he said, Then you can discuss whatever your training, what you were taught yesterday, if you wish to discuss that with your fellow worker, you may do so, but outside of the compound it’s a no- no. We were instructed that we would be going basically to school ten to twelve hours a day, six days a week, and we could take all the notes we wanted, but the notes would have to be left within the classified area. So we began the training of the Mark V, the Mark VI, and the Mark VII nuclear devices as to how to disassemble and also put them together, and with the intent that later on we might be asked to be in different squadrons if the president would ask for nuclear devices to be used in a war. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 12 Wow. So that was at Sandia in Albuquerque, New Mexico and you were there for four months, and after the four months of training was over, your next assignment was what? The next assignment we had after we completed our training and we had been told that we had passed— I scored a 93— with the understanding that when we went into this training, that at the end of the four months if we didn’t score 90 and above, we probably wouldn’t stay in the program. I scored 93, and I have to admit there was quite a few boys that didn’t pass. They just didn’t make it. But then we completed that and then we didn’t have any particular place for us to go immediately, and so we were asked then to participate with another army unit at Sandia base. Within the Sandia base compound, which is a large area, there is a storage facility, and they said, That’s run by the Army and since we’ve been teaching you how to be security guards as well, the army hasn’t had a chance to get their people on annual leave to go home and see their families. For the next four or five months we’re going to take half of their organization and we’re going to take over half of their responsibilities. And so then we worked in the storage facility, and the storage facility. I make no bones about it, it has the storage of nuclear units. There’s a lot of bunkers around and there are four individual cyclone fences. What is a “ cyclone fence”? A cyclone fence would be like you would have around any playground, or like you see along various highway— A kind of chain link fence. Just a chain link, basically a chain link fence. But the third fence in the middle— coming from the outside coming in, the first fence is a protective fence, the second fence is another protective fence, the third fence has got a 120,000 volts into it, and the fourth fence on the inside is to UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 13 protect you from the inside of getting next to the fence. We recognized by this time that this is pretty serious business. We were asked to pull security work up there and relieve the Army, because they had to guard the various facilities where nuclear devices were being stored and worked on. We continued to do that through the end of 1951 and we came up in early 1952. The Army said, All of our troops have had adequate time to spend time home with their families and so we’re going to relieve you of that. By this time we’d been told that we were now being assigned to the 1st Tactical Support Squadron and we will be preparing to put you together as a unit of 280 people, and about forty of those will be officers and the rest of you will be enlisted people. We’re going [ 00: 35: 00] to be putting all of the equipment together, vehicles, and whatever we need for this squadron, and you’re going to be helping us do that. And early February 1952, sure enough, we were all loaded onto C- 119 aircraft and we went to Langley Air Force [ Base], Virginia. What was your rank at this time? At this time I have two stripes on my shoulders. So that makes you a—? I’m now a corporal, airman second class. A corporal. Do you recall when you got your promotion to corporal? I got promoted to corporal, as I remember, in November 1951. I got rank pretty quickly in the service, if I may use that word “ quickly.” A lot of guys didn’t get to be corporals. I think what I see after the fact, that us gentlemen, young boys, that had came from the farm, we all realized what responsibility was. I think the service people above us in rank realized that here are the boys that know what responsibility is. I think that had a lot of input to it. And as I said, I became a corporal a lot earlier than some of my friends did. And I thought they were just as sharp as I UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 14 was, except I think the ranking people above us realized that some of us knew how to handle responsibility. And we arrived at Langley Air Force Base and we were told we were only going to be there like two to three months. We had our own— by this time we have now six training nuclear units with us. They’re basically not a nuclear unit but they’re a training unit of like kind. A model. A model. And we have a special building that we— out of the 180 of us there’s a number of us that are being just plain security guards. And then there’s a group of us that were working assembly and disassembly. Basically we’re trained in both areas. Not everybody that was a security guard was trained in both areas though. A group of us was cross- trained, and then there were some enlisted people that were strictly just assembly and disassembly. I just happened to be one of them that got cross- trained in both areas, and I sort of enjoyed that. It broke up the monotony. You know, security work, standing at a post, guarding to make sure that the right people get into the facility, it’s a responsibility; it’s not the most exciting job but yes, it has to be done. Was there any extra security training that would’ve been over and above general military security training because you were working with such important weapons? I would say yes. We were trained particularly in the security area that, you know, if people don’t have the proper identification— and please bear in mind the badges in those days, a badge, and as you looked at the picture it had a gold braid across the picture, and it was kind of like cat and mouse, you know, two stripes up and down and across, parallel— and they said, you know, If that badge doesn’t have that gold band and braid into it, you’re not allowed to let anybody in this building. And of course there were also special numbers on the badges that you also had to pay attention to also. And we were trained to make sure that, I guess UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 15 I’d have to say, [ to] watch out for the counterfeit badges. I will also tell you that yes, I think they pulled a few tricks on us once in a while. They’d send in a dummy, particularly if I was on post. I was on post one afternoon when this gentleman come through and I said, I’m sorry, sir, you don’t have the right numbers on your badge and secondly, you have a badge that doesn’t have gold braid in it, and I said, so you’re going to be detained right here. And we detained him and called for the sergeant and he came down and