Part V - Burying the dead took too long... Hiroshima is no more...

            The attempt to get a person’s mind around the totality of the destruction wrought by man’s first infantile steps into the Atomic Age is nearly futile. To simply state that the event was ‘Hellish’ fails to give it the degree of understanding it deserves. Nonetheless, if mankind has ever developed Hell on Earth, this event must surely sit atop of that accomplishment-of-misery. Simply stated, what had happened in July in the desert at Alamogordo with the Gadget was unbelievable; but, what happened to Hiroshima with Little Boy... the terror & destruction of a modern city… was, and remains, beyond human comprehension. The dead that perished quickly were the lucky. 

            As you read about and view the results of the bombing, bare in mind that due to Pacific geologic fault activity, Japan had stringent building codes; much higher than was the rule in the United States. Had a weapon of this magnitude been used on an American city of comparable size, the devastation would have been even worse than what you will see happened to Hiroshima.

            Death came via any of the following four means:

            Silent Thermal Pulse/Flash: Everything at the hypocenter (area directly under the blast point) was vaporized – nothing remained. Steel and concrete fared no better than tissue paper. Up to 1/2 of a mile, granite melted; it was literally fused into quartz. At 1 mile from the blast point, wood and railroad ties spontaneously ignited. Up to 1 ¼ miles, clothes on exposed persons spontaneously ignited; dark colored clothing absorbed the heat (burning the skin) while light colors reflected the heat.

            Blast Pressure: The Hiroshima Bomb, Little Boy generated up to 6.7 tons per square meter at the hypocenter; The Nagasaki Bomb, Fat Man generated up to 10.0 tons per sq. meter at the hypocenter. This phenomenon also agitated the firestorm process by fanning the firestorms working outward (and then back in) as nature tried to cool the source of the intense heat.

            The best way to understand blast pressure is to mark a 39” x 39” square on the floor; next, step inside the square. Now, try to imagine 6.7 tons of rock being dropped on you, all in the same instant. That was the blast pressure delivered by the Uranium-235 bomb, “Little Boy” upon Hiroshima. At Nagasaki, the Plutonium-239 weapon, “Fat Man” delivered 10 tons of blast pressure per square meter. Bodies were ripped apart like the bursting of a child’s delicate bubbles; and, concrete and steel were swept aside like a child’s sand castle. The city was literally swept away being wiped from the face of the Earth.

            Radiation: Which way the wind blew could have saved or doomed an individual that morning, too. Approximately 20% of victims died from - Gamma, Beta and Neutron radiation exposure. In the atmosphere, as Mother Nature attempted to cool the fireball as it escalates into the upper atmosphere, it began to rain “Purple Rain” (pop song). This rain was charged with radio active fallout that came back to Earth in the raindrops. This process further exposed plant and human life to dangerous levels of radioactive fallout. Fallout also returned to Earth without the help of rain; and, in its ashen state, it was just as dangerous as in its rain-induced liquid state. But the wind patterns determined where and how much of this fallout was spread around the outlying areas of the doomed city. Radiation sickness was measured in three phases:
            Phase one was hours up to a few days – symptoms included nausea, headache, diarrhea, malaise, and light (100-101) fever.             Second phase followed at approximately 10 to 15 days – hair started falling out, severe diarrhea, sever (105-106) fever.             Third Phase followed at approximately 25 to 30 days - blood disorders, gums began bleeding , abrasions appeared over large portions of the body, drop in red blood cell count (anemia), drop in white blood cell count (fights infection), temporary reproductive process was halted – men became sterile and women stop menstruating, and most pregnancies resulted in miscarriage.
            Even those that survived the blast and regained their health later were found to face disorders of malignant cancers such as those associated with thyroid, breast, lung, and salivary gland tumors. Also, due to the half life of some types of radiation, any woman exposed to too much radiation that August morning in 1945 might carry it with her to her eventual death. This also meant that later a pregnant mother would often pass the radiation sickness on to the developing fetus. This led to extremely high incidents of physical and mental birth defects. An example: A ten year old little girl survives the blast in Augusta 1945.  Fast forward to August 1955; and the now twenty year old young lady is happily married and expecting her first born child. Unfortunately, due to the radiation exposure she absorbed in 1945, her chances of having a child afflicted with some form of birth defect was a very big, real risk with which she and thousands of other female survivors had to contend.

(Above and below: Short video clips from the "Lost Generation Remembers" recounted by survivors concerning examples of radiation burns and sickness from radioactive fallout. You will see and hear more from Mr. Tamiguchi, below. Jane Fonda is the narrator)

            Fire Storm: This is a natural phenomenon resulting from the unbelievably intense heat that was emanating outward in all directions. Basically, the silent heat pulse represented what was an instantaneous, man-inspired, sun/star-on Earth. On the ground, anything combustible, and not vaporized at ground zero, spontaneously combusted as the heat moved outward. Fires need oxygen to feed upon, and horrific winds were rapidly whipped up. While nature was attempting to cool the source of the intense heat; supplying massive winds meant feeding the fires in towards the vortex . The more oxygen that fed the fire, the more the fire spread outwards to find combustible materials. Winds reached well beyond tornado intensity - today, estimates are up to 470 miles an hour from a 20 megaton blast. Also, inwards towards the center of the fire’s source, there became a void of oxygen; therefore, those that did not perish in the initial blast were suffocating while in the process of being burned to death.
            Following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the war came to a very rapid close. Japan would be occupied by the United States; however, unlike Germany, Japan remained sovereign. There was no carving-up of Japan into multiple zones as was the case with Germany. Also, Emperor Hirohito remained the sovereign head of Japan. The United States' military governor, General Douglas MacArthur, ran the real show; still, Japan maintained its national identity and territorial integrity. The bottom line is, America did not get its unconditional terms for surrender met. Compared to Germany, Japan's terms were decidedly better.

            Oddly, the world received virtually no accurate information (especially photographs) about Hiroshima & Nagasaki. This was no accident; on September 18, 1945, just over a month after Japan had surrendered, General Douglas MacArthur, as Military Governor of Occupied Japan, imposed a strict code of censorship on the newly defeated nation. It read, in part: “nothing shall be printed which might, directly or by inference, disturb public tranquility.”

           Fearing public backlash, the “public tranquility” MacArthur cited in his decree was not directed at the newly conquered Japanese populace; the target was intended to keep the American public in the dark. The following is the visual proof of why our government “locked down” any information – especially visual – from getting back to main street America.

(Above and below: Dark colors absorbed the heat, light colors deflected it. Depending on an individual's  distance from the blast, and the color of the clothes they put on that morning, they may have been spared or suffered horribly. This youngster, even though the position of his body placed him in harm’s way, was wearing a light colored head covering that protected his forehead and hair while the rest of his exposed clothing facing the heat source absorbed the heat. The woman below can be seen to have had the strap of a sack slung over her shoulder; the white cloth reflected the heat.)

(Above: A victim of the Hiroshima bomb as seen at the Ujina Branch of the US First Army Hospital in Hiroshima. The thermal rays emitted by the explosion burned the pattern of this woman's kimono into her back. Signal Corps, A.O.O., September 1945)
 

(Above: Including his chest and the left side of his belly, this 16 year old boy had thermal burns on more than one-third of his body. He managed to leave the hospital after 3 years and 7 months. He went on to become the father of two children. "In the early stages, the only treatment I received for my burns was the application of a mixture of ash and oil as a substitute for medicine. I do not know how many times I yelled "kill me!" because of the severe pain and desperate feeling. Thereafter, as a result of the several operations I underwent, I escaped death and returned to work.   Since I have once given up my life, I wish to dedicate my new life to the struggle against atomic bombs."  Mr. Tamiguchi)

(Above: This is Mr. Tamiguchi the 16 year old young man in the preceding picture.)

(Above: Suffering beyond belief.)

(Above: Within the initial 8 seconds after detonation, up to 100,000 people died and another 100,000 people were doomed. This youngster’s carbonized corpse indicates that he was probably a 12-15 year old male, mobilized into the local industry to meet the badly needed war labor efforts. From middle school into high school (up to the age to serve in the military) children made up a large portion of the Japanese labor force.  For health reasons, his corpse was among the tens of thousands burned or buried in mass graves by the Japanese Government to prevent disease.)

 

(Above: This is the eye of a blinded victim unfortunate enough to have been looking in the general direction of the blast. At such an intense luminosity, the brightness of the heat pulse at the instant of the detonation welded the retina to the pupil of this victim’s eye.)

            In a moment, Hiroshima was wiped from the face of the Earth. At the hypocenter, the silent heat pulse vaporized everything and working outward from that point varying degrees of carbonization took place. Much like erasing a chalkboard, the immense blast pressure collapsed and destroyed everything in its path. The spontaneous ignition of combustible materials initiated a firestorm that burned for hours and only ended because there was nothing combustible left to feed its flames. As if this were not horrific enough, later - years later in many cases - thousands would suffer before succumbing to radiation sickness.

            Below are still pictures of the remains of Hiroshima. Suffice to say, the conquering US Army of Occupation found very little remained to “occupy”. Due to structural concerns, the Army Corp of Engineers condemned all but six buildings that remained in the city-proper. A paltry half-dozen buildings out of a city of 350-400,000 populace, was all that remained. What the bomb had not wiped away, US Army Corpsmen finished with their bulldozers.

(Above: View of Hiroshima looking toward the financial district.)

(Above: As can be seen in the photo with the remains of the church, Christianity had made inroads into Japanese culture. While certainly a minority, Christians were not persecuted in Japan.)

(Above: The aiming point for the Enola Gay's bombardier, Tom Ferebee, was the T-shaped Aioi River Bridge. The cruising speed for the huge B-29 was 220 mph; and, the Enola Gay was at 36,000 feet when the bomb was released. The fact that Ferebee came so close to hitting the mark, from that altitude and speed, is a credit to his skill and the training the crew had received in the Utah desert at Wendover Army Airfield.)

(Above: This photograph was taken 2 hours before this man’s death at the request of an American Army surgeon. This soldier's symptoms recorded a typical description of the acute nature of radiation sickness. The photograph shows a 21 year-old soldier who was in a wooden house situated a mile from the hypocenter. Since he was indoors, he was saved from burns, but, as he received cuts on his back, right elbow, and stomach, first-aid treatment was given to him; however, he became a subject of interest as the result of the following: August 18 --Hair falling out is noticed; August 19 --Bleeding from gum, and purplish subcutaneous hemorrhage starts to appear as in the photograph; August 30 --Is hospitalized in the Ujina Branch of the Army Hospital, and on the 31st becomes feverish; September 1 --Tonsillitis occurs and with a sore throat he can not eat. Bleeding from gums does not stop, and subcutaneous hemorrhage multiplies on face and upper half of body: September 2 –slips into semi consciousness and starts to talk in delirium. September 3 --Died at 9:30 p.m.)

(Above: This 11 year old girl was in her home approximately 2 miles from the hypocenter. She received no observable physical injury. However, within a week of the blast, she had many of the same symptoms as the soldier in the prior slide. She did recover, but died in 1971 from cancer related radiation exposure from 1945. She was 37 years old.)

(Above: This is a video collection showing the extent of the types of injuries that existed. Be advised that it is graphic.)

(Above: The shadows to the left side of the bridge are where people were at the time of the detonation. A person absorbed the heat pulse, thereby protecting the surface material behind him/her.)

(Above: The remains of A-bomb victims were still being recovered years after the bombing. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and surrounding areas occasionally will still find sites of hastily made mass graveyards of A-bomb victims. Due to the utter number of victims buried, it is not an unusual occurrence for this situation to take place. However, the picture is misleading. The truth is that the Japanese Government quickly realized – for health reasons – that mass burial was not an option… most victims were cremated. Due to the sheer number of dead, they could not dig the mass graves fast enough; therefore, the government had to resort to mass cremation.)

“I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country.”  General George S. Patton, US Army

Part IV - Tibbets and the Enola Gay ride into history...

"This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper." The Hollow Men, T. S. Eliot

(Above: The race to build an Atomic bomb was rapidly drawing to a close. America and her Canadian and British allies had endeavored to build an Atomic weapon out of fear that Nazi Germany was already ahead of them. However, by the time the weapon was built and tested, Germany had surrendered and was out of the war. Japan remained; and, therefore became the focus of the new weapon.)            
            On the night of March 9-10, 1945, the United States fire bombed the capital of Japan, Tokyo. In three separate waves, flying at low altitude, covering approximately 6 hours of constant bombing, 334 B-29 Super-fortresses dropped 1,667 tons of incendiary bombs on the city. This ignited a fire storm that actually killed more people than the bomb dropped by Colonel Tibbets in the first use of an A-bomb five months later against Hiroshima.

            There is a great difference between the two bombing runs, though. While both bombing missions destroyed most of their targets; the Hiroshima Uranium-235 bomb “Little Boy” was one bomb that weighed slightly less than 5 tons. The Tokyo mission dropped 1,667 tons of incendiary bombs used against that target. Also, the Hiroshima A-bomb was carried by one plane. It took 334 planes used against Tokyo.
            The Enola Gay and “Little Boy” did virtually the same thing to Hiroshima that took 334 planes, 3 separate bombing raids - while dropping three million three hundred and thirty four thousand pounds of incendiary bombs – to do to Tokyo. Moreover, the Tokyo raids took place over a 6 hour time span; the Enola Gay & “Little Boy” were able to do it in approximately 8 seconds. 8 Seconds is all it took to doom the city.
            Hiroshima was a city of approximately 350 to 400,000 people in August of 1945; it was also headquarters to the Imperial 2nd General Army. When the Atomic bomb detonated, the fireball from "Little Boy" was 6 football fields wide; and, at its core, the heat matched that of the surface of the sun. Within the area on the ground directly under the epicenter (called the hypocenter) everything was vaporized. Literally, people burned like tissue paper; nothing was left. There was no pain; there was no dying process for these people; they simply ceased to exist. There were no charred remains, no bones, no teeth or dental remains, nothing.  This is the primary reason there remains - and will always remain - such a wide gap in the estimated total of deaths at Hiroshima... at the hypocenter, very near the heart of the city, there simply was nothing left to count.

(Above: Today, the Enola Gay hangs in the US Air & Space Museum located next to Dulles Airport in Chantilly, Virginia. In the 1990s a literal war between political peace activist and veteran’s groups erupted when the Enola Gay was slatted to be displayed at the Washington DC Smithsonian Museum. This caused an outcry from the peace activist and the government of Japan. When the idea was mothballed by US officials, veteran’s groups responded to insure the plane took its proper place in the museum. The eventual result was to have the plane fully restored and placed in the Air & Space Museum in Chantilly.)
 

(Above: The Enola Gay’s flight crew, training officer Colonel Paul Tibbets is standing 2nd from right. Navigator Theodore “Dutch” van Kirk - in the middle standing next to Tibbets - is the sole remaining survivor of either of the two historic flight crews that were responsible for the dropping of the Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.)
 

(Above: The science of killing… to insure the entire city was exposed to the weapon, “Little Boy” was detonated by altimeter at 1885 feet over the city of Hiroshima. That guaranteed an umbrella effect that would blanket most of the city.  The mission took place on 06 August 1945 and detonated at 0815. In order to give the pilot and crew enough time to escape, the bomb free-fell for 43 seconds before detonating. “Little Boy” weighed approximate 4.5 tons and had a 12.5 Kiloton yield. It was 12 feet long x 28 inches in diameter and was a Uranium bomb (U-235) comprised of 1/13^th of an ounce of fissionable material. Sited and dropped by hand, it was very close to “on target”. The aiming point was the T-shaped Aioi Bridge which was the main bridge close to the heart of the city.)

            The B-29 Enola Gay was named after the mother of pilot, Paul Tibbets. Due to the bomb's weight, Tibbets had to use all 1.8 miles of runway to get the weapon off the ground. Liftoff was 0245 from Tinian Island. It was a 13 hour round-trip flight. Tibbetts and other members of the crew, napped on the way to the bombing target.

            The mushroom cloud was visible from the air for almost 400 miles.

(Above: The mushroom cloud over Hiroshima about one hour after the bombing. The photo was taken from a U.S. observer plane over the Seto Inland Sea about 80 miles from the hypocenter. U.S. Army photo courtesy of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation)

            After dropping the bomb, in order for the Enola Gay to escape from being knocked out of the sky, Tibbets had to pick up as much speed as possible. This required the Enola Gay to turn into a 159 degree, steep banking dive. 43 Seconds after dropping the bomb, a tingling in Tibbets' teeth told him of the successful detonation. The bomb's radioactive forces were interacting with the lead fillings in his teeth. As the plane raced away, the shockwave from the blast raced toward them at 1,100 feet per second. When the shockwave hit, the plane was approximately 9 to 10 miles away from the point of detonation. Then, a second shockwave slammed them. This was the result of the force of the blast emanating back off the surface of the Earth; and, it was almost as powerful as the initial shockwave.

            The mushroom cloud boiled up over 45,000 feet high, 8 miles into the atmosphere. The city had completely disappeared, incinerated under a blanket of smoke and fire. They radioed back to Tinian that the primary target had been bombed visually with good results. Upon arriving back at Tinian, they were debriefed and given a quick medical checkup. The interviewers were skeptical of their accounts of the blast.

(Above: This video clip features archival footage that is woven together with a BBC production dealing with the Hiroshima bombing of 06 August 1945.)
 



(Above: Comments by retired Brigadier General Paul Tibbets made for the Smithsonian TV production, “The Men Who Brought the Dawn”.)

            The news of the atomic bomb was promptly announced to the world by President Truman. The Japanese were given an ultimatum, to accept the Potsdam call for unconditional surrender, or face further atomic attacks. Having failed to surrender, three days later, on August 9th, Major Chuck Sweeney, in Bock's Car, dropped the second atomic bomb, Fat-Man on Nagasaki.
 

(Above: Dropped on Nagasaki on 09 August 1945 at 1102, “Fat Man” was named after Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain, an ally whose mother was an American. The approximate weight of the weapon was 4.5 tons; it was a Plutonium bomb (P-239) with a 22.1 Kiloton Yield. The weapon was delivered by the B-29 flying super fortress, Bock’s Car & piloted by Major Charles Sweeney. “Fat man” was detonated by altimeter at 1635 feet; however, it completely missed the city - the epicenter was over a valley adjacent to Nagasaki but outside the city. The weapon still destroyed approximately 2/3s of the city and killed approximately 70,000 people. Unlike Hiroshima, due to the vegetation in the valley over the epicenter, there was no firestorm visited on Nagasaki.)
 

(Above: Bock’s Car; currently on permanent display at the US Air Force Museum located at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.)

(Above: The crew of another B-29, The Great Artiste, flew Bock’s Car and was commanded by Major Charles W. Sweeney (top right, standing). This crew also piloted the scientific plane on the mission that annihilated Hiroshima and thus were among the select few to witness the destruction of both cities.)

            It should be noted that Nagasaki was not the primary target; Kokura was the primary drop site. When Major Sweeney arrived over Kokura, it was clouded over. Having waited as long as possible, he eventually decided to move to the secondary target, Nagasaki.

            Nagasaki was home to the Mitsubishi Steel works and also was home to one of the Japanese war production torpedo factories. Both industrial targets placed the city high on the list of atomic targets.

            Once Sweeney arrived over Nagasaki, it too was clouded over. Nonetheless, he could not make it back to Tinian Airfield carrying a 10,000 lb. atomic bomb in the belly of the aircraft.  To attempt to land in such a state could have led to the incineration of the island.

            To add to Sweeney’s problems, his fuel became critically low. Having spent more time than he should have afforded, Sweeney eventually took Bock’s Car to an area where there was a partial break in the cloud cover over Nagasaki; the bombardier quickly sited the bomb and released the payload. Literally “out of fuel”, Sweeny eventually had to perform an emergency landing at Okinawa. This happened even though there was no tower clearance to land the craft and the runway was designated as too short to accept the huge B-29.  He was nonetheless successful landing the aircraft.
 

(Above: This photo was taken very near the exact moment of detonation of "Fat Man" over Nagasaki. This photograph truly captures the remarkable event. Notice the three people in the foreground, as yet unaware that anything has happened. The destruction of Nagasaki followed that of Hiroshima by three days and compelled Japan to surrender, ending World War II.   Photo: Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum/Corbis)

 

(Above: Dr. Harold Agnew, with the plutonium core of the Nagasaki bomb. Most of the case's housing consists of lining to protect its currier, Dr. Agnew.)

 

(Above: Historical archival footage of the Nagasaki blast taken by one of the escort planes. The video appears so clean (no clouds in the sky) because of the effect made by the blast pressure shockwave. The shockwave instantly removed all cloud cover from the range of the blast area. A closer look at the previous photograph gives the reader a good idea of cloud conditions over Nagasaki that morning.)

(Above: Archival footage of "Fat Man" and the Nagasaki bombing which were taken by elements on the ground at Tinian and in the air by one of the trail planes. The video used here is by way of the BBC)

Part III - A place called Trinity... in the Valley of the Dead...

“Thunder is good. Thunder is impressive. But it is lightning that does the work.”  Mark Twain

(Above: The United States tested only one bomb, the 19 kiloton plutonium bomb code-named 'The Gadget'. It was suspended and detonated from a 150-foot steel tower which vaporized during the successful trial.)
 

(Above: The run up to the test. Note: There is no sound with this video.)

(Above: Documentary film referring to the Trinity Test.)
 

(Above: The heat was so intense that it fused the sand on the desert floor into glass shards called Trinitite. Today, there remains very little of the Trinitite that has not been removed by thieves and history buffs seeking a piece of real history.)



(Above: "The Gadget" up close. Future Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory

 Kenneth Bainbridge is pictured at left.)

            The Trinity test site was located in a deserted area called Jornada del Muerto ("Journey of the dead"), in southern New Mexico about 225 miles south of Los Alamos. The nearest dot-on-the-map was a crossroads called Alamogordo. Today, this area is under the control of the United States Air Force and is known as the White Sands Missile Test Range. As a national historic site, twice a year, the Trinity site is opened to historians and regular citizens to visit.
 

(Above: Trinity was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1975. The site is opened to the public twice a year, the first Saturday in April & September. The site consists of 51,500 acres; however, it is also located on the northern end of the 3,200 square-mile White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. Cameras are allowed at the Trinity Site, but their use is strictly prohibited anywhere else on the White Sands Missile Test Range.)

(Above: Detonation plus 16/100s of a second & spans approximately 300 yards.)

            “Suddenly, without any sound, the whole world lit up. When I came to my senses, I was lying on the ground with my back to where the light was coming from. I put my hands over my eyes to protect them and I could see the bones in my fingers. It was as if I was looking at an X-ray. It was as if someone had turned the sun on with a switch.”   Daniel Yearout , then a Private in the US Army and an eye witness
            Local media were told that an ammunition dump had blown up on an army base in the area. The test was code-named Trinity, supposedly after a poem by John Donne which begins: "Batter my heart, three-person'd God”. The Gadget was a Plutonium-239 like the one detonated over Nagasaki. It was detonated on 16 July 1945 at 05:29.45 - half an hour before daybreak. The test was 1 ½ hours late due to a sever thunderstorm that moved through the area.

            The minimum distance from hypocenter to the nearest human being was 6 miles (most were further away) where the scientific community was stationed in bunkers. There were scientists that did not think the blast would/could split atoms – causing a chain reaction; then Edward Teller (Hydrogen Bomb creator) thought a successful detonation/chain reaction could possibly ignite the atmosphere and destroy the world.

             The test bomb, at the flash point, reached a temperature of between 2 & 3 million degrees centigrade (conventional bombs reach 500 degrees C which means the test bomb was between 4000 to 6000 times hotter).

            At .1 millisecond it cooled to 300,000 degrees C. (Iron melts at 1536 degrees C. – or almost 200 times hotter than the point iron melts.)
             The luminosity reached not quite 10 x the brightness of the sun. (Later, Japanese victims located miles from the point of detonation, had the retinas of their eyes wielded to the pupils causing instant, permanent blindness.)
             The flash was visible for approximately 180 miles, audible for approximately 160 miles, at 120 miles glass panes broke out of windows, and at 10 miles the heat was like “opening an oven door”.
             All that power was the result of 1/30th of an ounce of P-239, the fissionable material. 

            Even before the test was executed in the desert near Alamogordo, the United States had sent the Hiroshima bomb, Little Boy (U-235) on the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis to Tinian Island in the Pacific. Once it arrived at Tinian, the bomb was loaded into the belly of the pressurized B-29, Enola Gay.

            Although the largest aircraft in the world, to manage the sheer size and weight of the bomb (almost 5 tons) the B-29's bomb-bay had to be retrofitted. The first pressurized bomber, the B-29 could also fly higher than the Japanese Zero could reach. Lastly, it had the fuel capacity to reach out to cover the distance and deliver the weapon to its target. Even so, Tinian Island had been the scene of heavy combat costing a great deal of bloodshed for both sides, Japanese and American. It was the island’s geographic location and size that made it so critical to the US Atomic Bomb mission. Tinian was both close enough to the Japanese mainland and large enough for the huge B-29 to be accommodated with the required longer runway.
            Recall that Colonel Paul Tibbetts had been training the 509^th Composite Bomb Group to deliver the weapon to the appointed target in Japan. That story is part IV of the series.

            "The atomic bomb is the Second Coming of Wrath." British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill’s statement, upon being informed that the Trinity Test was successful

Part II - Never bring a knife to a gunfight...

            Before we continue to move along with the history of the development and use of these weapons, it is appropriate to understand the basics of how a nuclear weapons differ from their conventional weapons counterparts. In part 2, we answer some of these questions in very rudimentary fashion. (Again, it should be remembered this review is for the social science minded folks that are not amongst the mathematicians, chemists and physicist out there that may desire greater detail.)
            What makes nuclear weapons so different from conventional weapons? That question can be likened to explaining the difference between night and day. Basically, the process leading up to detonation is very different, as is the degree of damage inflicted after detonation. Basically, the difference between nuclear and conventional weapons is like that of bringing a knife to a gunfight.
            A nuclear detonation employs a process of implosion caused when atoms of atomic matter (Uranium-235 or Plutonium-239) are either forced to combine (a fusion bomb) or split apart (a fission bomb). In either case, approximately 90% of the energy of a nuclear blast is expended in the first 1/1000000 of a second (one millionth of a second) and it occurs in the form of a silent heat pulse of searing light.
            Today, nuclear weapons implode by Gun Method which was the method employed by the Hiroshima bomb, "Little Boy" in 1945. It basically consists of firing, at tremendous velocity, a bullet of weapons grade atomic matter into a ring of weapons grade atomic matter. When the component pieces of atomic matter collide, they instantly reach a point called critical mass. Critical mass is attained at the point when the atomic materials can collapse no further back into itself. When that occurs, it sets off a neutron based chain reaction and solid matter begins to unravel. The result of this process is the generation of immense heat, blast pressure (measured in Kilotons & Megatons of TNT), and multiple types of radiation or fallout - which is measured by ½ life and can be measured in some cases by tens of thousands of years.

             Contrasted against a nuclear detonation, a traditional or conventional bomb depends upon HE (high explosives) and explodes, radiating outward from the source material. Blast pressure and heat are generated – but nothing compared to a nuclear detonation. Let us take a closer look and compare the two.
            Traditional bombs are measured in the amount of TNT (dynamite) it would take to get the same blast pressure/‘bang’. In 1945, the British “Block Buster” was the largest conventional explosive bomb used at that time. It was employed against Nazi Germany and it was said that one “Block Buster” could destroy a city block. The blast formula follows: 1 Block Buster = 10 tons (2000 lbs are in a ton) of TNT or 20,000 lbs of TNT to get the same explosive yield or ‘bang’. So, if you could detonate 20,000 lbs of dynamite at the same moment, that would generate the same blast pressure as one “Block Buster” bomb.
             With the development of the Atomic bomb, we found new language had to be employed to measure the blast force. The simple employment of tons of TNT was dwarfed and not useable to measure the blast force of an atomic weapon. With the development of the A-bomb, the term kiloton had to be employed to measure the blast pressure yield. That’s a reference to how many thousands of tons of TNT or dynamite it would take to get the same ‘bang’. Today they are measured in Megatons – of TNT to get the same blast effect.
             The formula for blast pressure measurement for the Hiroshima Bomb (nicknamed Little Boy) was equal to 12.5 Kilotons of TNT or 12.5 x 1000 (Kilo) x 2000 lbs (ton) of TNT or 25,000,000 lbs. (THAT”S 25 MILLION POUNDS of TNT to get the same bang.) The Nagasaki bomb (Fat Man) was equal to 22.5 Kilotons of TNT.
             Today’s tactical (battlefield) nuclear weapons have more power than the Little Boy & Fat Man bombs, and there are several thousand in existence. Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) and Submarine Launched ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) are capable of carrying the Megaton warheads… there are thousands in existence.
            For the record, the Soviet Union’s “King Bomb” (Царь-бомба) was a 50 Megaton warhead and has the distinction of being the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated. It was detonated on 30 October 1961; and, it would equal 50 x mega/million (1,000,000) x ton (2000 lbs) of TNT – or – 100,000,000,000 lbs. (That’s 100 Billion pounds of TNT to get the same explosive yield. The explosion was hot enough to induce third degree burns over 60 miles away.

           "The basic rules to a gun fight are as follows: (1) Never bring a knife to a gunfight; bring a gun… preferably, bring at least two guns. (2) Bring all of your friends who have guns. (3) Life is expensive; ammo is cheap… anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. (4) Only hits count; the only thing worse than a miss is a slow miss. (5) If you can choose what to bring to a gunfight, bring a long gun and a friend with a long gun. (6) If you are not shooting, you should be communicating, reloading, and moving. (7) Always cheat, the only unfair fight is the one you lose. (8) Have a plan! (9) Have a backup plan because the first one won’t work. (10) The faster you finish the fight, the less shot you will get."   Adapted from United States Special Forces List Team House, http://teamhouse.tni.net/Misc/gunfight/rules.htm 



(Above: Tested by the Soviet Union, Tsar Bomba was the largest nuclear detonation in history. Narrated by Charlton Heston.)

Part I - In the beginning... there was always war...

     “Over the last 5,500 years… about 15,000 wars have taken place on our planet… more than 3.5 billion people have been killed in these wars… there have only been 292 peaceful years in the entire history of mankind.” Pravda, Russian State Newspaper, Weapons of the Future - Weather, Plasma and Money, 26 September 2003
     Estimates of deaths from the two Atomic Bombs range from 115,000 to 340,000. If the latter is correct -- and it is closer to the historical consensus -- the two nuclear devices used by the United States in August 1945, on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killed almost as many Japanese as all the Americans killed in all the battles of World War II. It is often thought that these bombs won World War II; that is not true. The Japanese Empire was rapidly spinning out 0f control and basically awaiting collapse. What is true is that these two weapons ended World War II and may have actually saved lives.
     This is the story behind the building of the Atomic Bombs... from a social science prospective. Information contained in this work is broad-based. Scientific reference is made only as it pertains to the historic record and as reflective of the needs of the non-scientist reader. The magnificent work of the tens of thousands of mathematicians, chemists, physicists, laborers, and the intelligence community, are little more than summarized in this work. Nonetheless, accuracy of the general outcome is fairly represented.
     The matter-of-fact willingness of our brightest minds to build an Atomic bomb remains haunting. In the silence of the pre-dawn New Mexico darkness, on July 16th, 1945 the assembled scientific community gathered in anticipation of what they were about to unleash. As they took shelter in bunkers and trenches, at least six miles from the detonation point, there remained a very high degree of apprehension within the assembled scientific community as to the outcome of the test. Would the implosion concept work? Could a chain-reaction be attained? (Some within the scientific community feared a chain-reaction might actually ignite the atmosphere and end the world.)
     Scientist Isidor Rabi, who won the betting pool on how big the bang would be by guessing the equivalent of 18,000 tons of TNT - it was measured at 18,600 - opened a bottle of whiskey and passed it among the assembled scientists; each man took a swig. For his part, as he watched the column of fire and dust climb seven miles in the sky, scientist (and later director of the Los Alamos Laboratory) Kenneth Bainbridge said "Now we are all sons of bitches.” Similarly, quoting a Hindu text, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer murmured, "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."

(Above: The first Atomic bomb, code named “The Gadget”, is detonated at the Trinity Test Range (in the Valley of the Dead) near Alamogordo, New Mexico, on 16 July 1945, at 5:30 a.m. Mountain War Time. The nearest observer was approximately 6 miles away. Hint: Watch for the shock wave rolling across the desert floor; also, watch the shock wall as it approached the railcars that were placed closer to the blast. Also, listen to the low moan of the blast.)

(Above: General Leslie Groves (left), military head of the Manhattan District Project, with Professor J. Robert Oppenheimer (right), scientific head of the project. The effort to build the Atomic bomb, without doubt, was the most concentrated intellectual effort in history. Never before in the history of mankind had so much brain-power and resources been focused onto a single goal. These two men deserve the lion's share of the credit for the bombs successful development.)
     The building of the Atomic bomb ultimately fell to Major General Groves who was a brilliant engineer in his own right - Groves oversaw the building of the US Pentagon in Washington DC. Initially, Groves was however an outside bet to ever attain the command of the project. As a US Army Colonel, he jumped several higher ranking career officers to gain the appointment to head up the Manhattan District Project. Upon his promotion, Groves went - almost overnight - from Colonel to Major General. General Groves proved to be a logistical genius. His efforts to garner the materials needed to develop the weapon were nothing short of spectacular.
     Once appointed to head the Manhattan Project, in turn, Groves went outside the accepted norm when he placed the scientific effort into the hands of the genius theoretical physicist Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer too was an outside bet to lead the scientific effort. From the very beginning - and throughout the entire development phase -"Oppy" carried a great deal of political baggage. Because he maintained close relationships with several members of the American Communist Party, Oppenheimer was constantly on the intelligence community’s radar screen as someone with highly questionable security clearance concerns. Later, American politicians returned to these relationships to destroy Oppenheimer's image and wrongfully sabotage his abilities to counter further nuclear weapons development, specific to the Hydrogen Bomb, which he was adamantly against. By stripping him of his security clearance, America removed the "Father of the Atomic bomb" from furthering nuclear weapons discussions. This action effectively destroyed Oppenheimer’s brilliant career and remains something most historians agree amounts to nothing short of a sham.
     These two men spearheaded the effort to build the world's first a nuclear weapon; and, they were polar opposites. Groves was a heavy man who did not drink and detested what he saw as the glitz of a fast paced social life. For his part, Oppenheimer was a slightly built man, drank often, and enjoyed the partying aspects of a social agenda that well exceeded Groves’ level of tolerance. America was extremely fortunate to have had these two men available to work on the same project at this most critical point in history. It is generally given that a lesser man in either role would have doomed the entire project.
     The main allies in this effort consisted of the Canadians, British, and Americans. Due to pre-World War II political realities, the Soviets were not invited to contribute to the A-bomb development. In truth, the democracies probably feared we would be using the weapon against the Soviets at some point in the future; ergo, Stalin was not invited to contribute to the effort.
     While there were sites all over America, Britain and Canada working on bomb theories and components, the lion’s share of this work was performed in the United States. Included in the American development effort was the literal building of three secret cities: LosAlamos, New Mexico; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; and Hanford, Washington.

(Above: Los Alamos, New Mexico was the home of the brain trust responsible for the design and assembly of the weapons. Today, the Los Alamos National Laboratory remains America’s primary home for nuclear weapons research and development. In its creation in 1943, Los Alamos was an entire city that did not exist… it was not on any map; you could not accidentally drive there without military police halting your progress; and, it aerospace was closed to all civilian air traffic.)

(Above: Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The US Government came into the East Tennessee Mountains and condemned huge tracks of land giving the occupants just a few weeks notice to vacate. The city was built so quickly and quietly that Tennessee Governor Prentice Cooper did not know it was being built in his own state. Oak Ridge was home to the Uranium enrichment and extraction – Hiroshima Bomb. At its peak, 1/6th of the total electrical power consumed in the United States was being used here.)

(Above: Hanford, Washington was home of Plutonium enrichment – Nagasaki Bomb. The home of the world’s first nuclear reactor, it was built in 6 months. Today, you can’t build a moderate home in that amount of time. Currently, the ongoing clean-up of nuclear waste continues at Hanford... the nuclear spillage from this site makes the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster pale in comparison.)
                                     … and, then there was Wendover Army Airfield…

(Above: “What you hear here, what you see here, when you leave here, let it stay here.” Not to be forgotten in this review, Wendover Army Airfield was located in Utah. The site was selected by Colonel Paul Tibbets; and, it became the home to the 509th Composite Group. It consisted of 15 B-29 bomber crews, hand picked by Tibbets, that were trained to deliver the A-bombs to their designated targets. The base was located in the middle of nowhere, in complete desert isolation; Wendover Field was also shrouded in secrecy. Over 400 federal agents operated solely at Wendover. All mail and phone traffic was monitored; and, you could not move from one building into another without the proper identification. From November 1944 to June 1945, the 509th trained continually for the bomb drop. Only Tibbets knew the bomb would be ‘Atomic’. They dropped 5-ton concrete bombs, called “pumpkins”, from 6 miles up in the air. “Silver-plate” was the code name used by Colonel Tibbets to access any and all materials needed to train the crews… during wartime this equaled an open credit account to do whatever was deemed necessary to successfully deliver a bomb to its target.)
     In summary, it should be noted that America did not get into the bomb race until 1943. In fact, Britain and Canada, initially sought to go it alone – exclusive of their American ally. When it became apparent that Canada did not possess enough hydropower to meet the projected energy requirements, the Brits and Canadians opened up to American participation in the race – supposedly to build the bomb before Hitler’s Nazi Germany could do it.
     Hitler was never close to building an Atomic bomb. Nazi Germany contributed to the advance of technology in two other areas, jet aircraft and missile technology. The Nazi war machine was tantalizingly close to winning the war – much closer than they have ever been acknowledged for having been.
     Had the German ME-262 jet aircraft come into play 12 to 18 months earlier, there would have been little doubt American and British heavy bombing raids would never have been successful. Likewise, the German V-1 and V-2 missiles were remarkably successful – even in their first-generation crude form. Giving credit where it is deserved, the world’s first cruise missile was successfully used in war by the Nazis in the Mediterranean Sea. Also, as an intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) the V-1 and V-2 struck terror in the hearts of Great Britain.
     It would have been a relatively short span of time until the Germans developed the first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) which would have made the United States a target of the early generation missiles. You need look no further than the interests given to the German rocket facility located at Peenemunde by the Americans and Soviets to realize how much further advanced in these areas the Germans were than the allies. America’s entire rocket program would ultimately be birthed on the backs of German scientist rounded up and sent to America. Had German ex-patriots not been the backbone of America’s space program, it would have been a one-horse-race to space and the Soviets would have won in a laugh.
     Back to the point, though; Nazi Germany had put its money on jets and rockets. Certainly the Nazis were involved in an Atomic program; but not to any serious degree. But in 1943, when America was getting into the race, whoever built the bomb would win the war... and the US and her allies thought they were behind the Germans. It was a world that could be dominated by the Nazis or by the democracies… but whomever dominated would do so as a result of having unlocked the power of Atomic weapons. That projection was exactly correct, too.
     The United States entry into the race to build a bomb is all the more impressive when consideration is given to the building of those four cities/facilities. Even though it was a time without satellites orbiting the Earth - which could have allowed an opponent to “see into your back yard” - the ability to construct such immense facilities and operate on such a dynamic scale - employing tens of thousands of people, while keeping it hidden from the press and public... remains difficult to fathom.
     It is also worth pointing out that these facilities we not operating on a 9 to 5 time clock. They ran 24 hours a day, seven days a week; while individuals may have taken leave, the project groaned on, unfazed by weekends or holidays.
     Whether you are a proponent or opponent of the use of nuclear weapons; there can be nothing short of absolute admiration for the abilities of the United States to garner the power and resources, human and material, to pull off such a feat. The time, energy, resources, and sacrifices, expended by the United States on the development of this horrific weapon – while fighting a war of global proportions and arming and feeding allies – is simply unbelievable in view of the world we live in, today.