“It was intended for Germany”
It was never intended at Germany. Trinity wasn’t until July of that year. Until Trinity they had no clue that the bomb would actually work - they had tested and failed.
You’re looking too far into the future of the development of the bomb. I wrote that it was >intended< for Germany at the beginning of the research to build a bomb. I suggest you read the book. They knew the fission bomb would work, it was the fusion bomb (plutonium) that was questionable since plutonium doesn’t exist in the atomic scale. Again, read the book.
The Manhattan Project began in 1942. They had no idea how long it would take them to develop the bomb, or how long the war would last. Their fear was the the Nazis would develop it first, and since the Pacific Theater was second in priority to the ETO in everything, I don't see how you've reached that certainty. Particularly in light of Germany's development of the V2 and ME-262 - had Germany still been fighting, their nazi-a$$es would have been lit up.
” ‘It was intended for Germany’
It was never intended at Germany. Trinity wasn’t until July of that year. Until Trinity they had no clue that the bomb would actually work - they had tested and failed.”
JCBreckenridge is in error. At more than one point.
The bomb development program was initiated specifically to counter the Third Reich: Dr Leo Szilard badgered Dr Albert Einstein into signing the letter (”We might be able to build a big bomb”) to President Roosevelt in 1939, just as the Nazis were attacking Poland.
While it is baldly true that no one was perfectly certain any fission bomb would work, the Manhattan Project physicists, engineers, and techs were so confident in the design of the bomb used on Hiroshima that they deliberately did not bother with a test. The ground test of 16 July 1945 (Trinity device) at Alamogordo was of a design far more ambitious and uncertain. A bomb of the Trinity configuration was used on Nagasaki.