My father on the island of Tinian.
Posted on 07/15/2005 9:48:59 PM PDT by Tennessee_Bob
With this quote from the Bagavad-Gita, Oppenheimer summoned in the nuclear age at 5:30 in the morning at the Trinity Site in New Mexico.
The yield of code name Gadget was estimated to be equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT - 2,000 B-29s worth of explosives.
A quote from Brigadier General T.F. Farrell regarding the blast - "The effects could well be called unprecedented, magnificent, beautiful, stupendous, and terrifying. No man-made phenomenon of such tremendous power had ever occurred before. The lighting effects beggared description. The whole country was lighted by a searing light with the intensity many times that of the midday sun. It was golden, purple, violet, gray, and blue. It lighted every peak, crevasse and ridge of the nearby mountain range with a clarity and beauty that cannot be described but must be seen to be imagined..."
The light from the blast was seen all over New Mexico, and in parts of Arizona, Texas, and Mexico. Windows shattered 120 miles away in Silver City, New Mexico, and the shock wave was felt in Los Alamos, 230 miles away.
Why this post? I live in Oak Ridge, Tennessee - part of the Manhattan Project. I own a home built in 1944, for the workers at the Y-12, K-25, and X-10 facilities. I go to church with folks that as young men and women, came to this City Behind the Fence, to do their jobs - without an understanding as to what the end result would be - just the knowledge that it was part of the war effort. I make a point of thanking them for what they did - because even though they didn't carry weapons, or face the enemy - they helped to end the war.
My former mother-in-law was brought up in Las Vegas, Nevada. She told me about how they used to watch the mushroom clouds going up and how you could feel the ground shake now and then from the tests. She had some pictures that she (or her mother) had taken of the clouds rising up in the distance - even had a postcard of tourists sitting on a hotel rooftop with a mushroom cloud going up in the distance.
My dad was a Marine on a ship headed for the Japanese mainland when the bombs were dropped and they ended the war. He told me he was to be one of the "first off the boat," and it was unlikely he'd have returned alive.
Apart from the bomb, I would never have been born (1957).
Same with my dear hubby. His dad was sitting on a tarmac waiting. My dad was on a boat. (I'd have shown up anyway - adopted, lol)
Thanks for the post, Bob. I'm a native Oak Ridger myself. Dad was a scientist at X-10.
I remember those "flat tops" fondly! We were in one of the cinderblock duplexes. You're not in Woodland, are you?
In fact, I can open my front door and see the school. :)
That's wonderful! Did you grow up in Woodland? Did you attend Woodland Elementary and Robertsville Junior High?
My father on the island of Tinian.
My dad worked on the Manhattan Project, one of relatively few who were actually located on Manhattan (at Columbia University). I don't know about the Scientific American story, but your question reminds me of a story he told me.
A guy living in the same apartment building who was a cartoonist and a science fiction buff got to know my father. He was aware that my father was working on a top secret war project, but knew nothing of the details. One day he announced that he had figured out that it must have been the atomic bomb because all mention of the bomb had abruptly disappeared from all the current science fiction literature.
That's an awesome picture. Dutch Van Kirk (navigator on Enola Gay) was in town a month ago for the Secret City Festival. I got to talk to him for a few minutes, and got an autographed picture of Enola Gay about to touch down after the Hiroshima mission. I wish I had been there the day before - apparently, he upset the Japanese press contingent that was there to see the festival. From what I understood, they asked if he felt any remorse for his part in the attack on Hiroshima, or if he felt apologetic. His response (from what I understood) was to ask them if they felt apologetic for Pearl Harbor or Nanking.
Actually there was one more bomb being prepared at Los Alamos. Tibbets had already sent three B-29's back to the United States to pick it up as soon as it was ready.
It always felt science fiction back then was heavy on the "science" side. Interesting connection. Interesting story. Thanks for sharing.
Only render safe procedure we had in EOD that involved a manure scoop.....the BLU82.......:o)
I had on many occasions reason to go through stallion gate on the north end of white sands for DOD/DOE tests and projects. Couple of times I visited that spot before the fences were put up. I have an old piece of navajo pottery that holds my 3 small pieces of trintinite (sp?) .
Stay safe !
I would like to see how that light reflects off of this...
We should have used #3 on Chinese on the Yalu River in 1950.
OOps, I see the EOD was a typo..
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