Certificates like this were also issued...
My father worked on the Manhattan Project, and I have both his pin and certificate. This seemed like an appropriate day to post those images.
Certificates like this were also issued...
My father worked on the Manhattan Project, and I have both his pin and certificate. This seemed like an appropriate day to post those images.
Yow.
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Seems like the New York Times had been given background stories on the bomb - regarding such subjects as the earlier New Mexico test and the names and backgrounds of key people involved in the Manhattan Project - well before it was actually used in Japan, and told by the government not to publish that information until the bomb was actually dropped. The Times apparently complied with such directives in the interest of national security. No way that could work nowadays.
What a contrast between the Times of that era and the Times of today! Over these 70 years, it has morphed from "the newspaper of record" into a leftist propaganda rag.
wow, this new bomb sure has people excited
Thank the Good Lord that Truman had the guts to drop The Bomb. AS someone mentioned, the casualties on both sides alone were astronomical. I am alive today because he had the guts...my dad was stationed on Okinawa and most likely would have been in the first wave ashore.
Made in America and tested in Japan bump.
I am trying to figure out how to post some of the pictures I took when I was in Hiroshima in 2006, of the places that most people don’t take pictures of: the foundation of the Imperial Military Headquarters (all that remains of it), on which Japanese teens were playing baseball catch; Shukkei-en, a beautiful garden complex; the double-length buses that run throughout the city, right at the epicenter.
Hiroshima is a beautiful place. I am getting too old now, but if I ever had the chance to live in Japan, I think I would prefer it to most of the other cities I have visited or lived in.
The day everything changed.
The moment when everything changed.
Canada Ping!
Was Churchill correct? Did God ensure that the Allies had this awful killer before the Axis did?
1. Do we have evidence of God playing favorites?
The Bible is replete with dozens of examples of God ensuring victory to one side or another, too many to recount here. Indeed, the question is often sneeringly posed whether God even favors one sports team over another; but assuredly He often does, for His own purposes, and who can deny the omnipotent God that right?
2. If God is a God of love, as He claims, would He be complicit in the use of such a weapon of mass destruction?
Yes, He has often permitted mass death; moreover, He has even caused it, as He will surely do again during the Great Tribulation. Why? Precisely because of His love. He uses these events (1) to limit evil and (2) to direct the attention of His beloved humans to their mortality and their utter dependence on Him, so as to encourage as many as possible to do the best thing for themselves: to turn to Him in faith in His goodness and love for them.
3. Did God favor the Allies in this war?
It seems clear that He did, for at least two reasons.
a. Evidential: Far too many examples occurred of seeming divine intervention on the Allies' side, besides this one, to ignore.
b. Inferential: While sometimes God has permitted despots to succeed for a season to teach lessons (e.g., Pharaoh, Shalmeneser, Nebuchadnezzar, Caesar, etc.), the scale of atrocities committed and promised by the Axis dwarfs any limited despotic success permitted by God previously. He did not permit their final victory, for His many good purposes, not least of which was the establishment immediately after the war of the reborn Israel.
Sobering Awareness of Power
It was obvious that officials at the highest levels made the important decision to release news of the atomic bomb because of the psychological effect it may have in forcing Japan to surrender. However, there are some officials who feel privately it might have been well to keep this completely secret. Their opinion can be summed up in the comment by one spokesman: “Why bother with the psychological warfare against an enemy that already is beaten and hasn’t sense enough to quit and save herself from utter doom?”
BECAUSE THEY WERE DEFEATED BUT HADN’T SURRENDERED.
One of the reasons people understood the concept of the atomic bomb was that Radium was very much in the news in prior years.
The new technology of luminescent watches and the “radium girls” were in the news. A paint called Undark and used for military watches so military was very aware of Radium in everyday life. Marie Currie was in every science text book.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium
Uranium had no large scale application in the late 19th century and therefore no large uranium mines existed. In the beginning the only larger source for uranium ore was the silver mines at Joachimsthal (now Jáchymov) in the Austrian Empire.[14] The uranium ore was only a by-product of the mining activities. After the isolation of radium by Marie and Pierre Curie from uranium ore from Joachimsthal several scientists started to isolate radium in small quantities. Later small companies purchased mine tailings from Joachimsthal mines and started isolating radium. In 1904 the Austrian government took over the ownership of the mines and stopped exporting raw ore. For some time the radium availability was low.[27]
The amounts of radium produced were and are always relatively small; for example, in 1918, 13.6 g of radium were produced in the United States.[29] In 1954, the total worldwide supply of purified radium amounted to about 5 pounds (2.3 kg),[30] and it is still in this range today, while the annual production of pure radium compounds is only about 100 g in total today.[31
Radium was formerly used in self-luminous paints for watches, nuclear panels, aircraft switches, clocks, and instrument dials. A typical self-luminous watch that uses radium paint contains around 1 microgram of radium.[30]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls
From 1917 to 1926, U.S. Radium Corporation, originally called the Radium Luminous Material Corporation, was engaged in the extraction and purification of radium from carnotite ore to produce luminous paints, which were marketed under the brand name “Undark”. As a defense contractor, U.S. Radium was a major supplier of radioluminescent watches to the military.
In one article today it mentions the last public statistic on uranium production is 1941.
Some interesting things:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining
Until World War II uranium mining was done primarily for the radium content.
. The Manhattan Project initially purchased uranium ore from the Belgian Congo
American uranium ores mined in Colorado were mixed ores of vanadium and uranium, but because of wartime secrecy, the Manhattan Project would publicly admit only to purchasing the vanadium, and did not pay the uranium miners for the uranium content. In a much later lawsuit, many miners were able to reclaim lost profits from the U.S. government.
Intensive exploration for uranium started after the end of World War II as a result of the military and civilian demand for uranium. There were three separate periods of uranium exploration or “booms.” These were from 1956 to 1960, 1967 to 1971, and from 1976 to 1982[citation
one expert in todays paper says the bomb weighs 400 lbs. Not quite right. But if that is true, what thoughts go through your head?
My father-in-Law was 18 and in the Navy in 1945. He was sent to Marine Boot Camp with other Navy guys to train for the invasion of Japan. After Boot Camp he was put on a ship bound for Japan. After the first bomb was dropped the ship stopped where it was in the Pacific. It sat their until Japan surrendered. Then rerouted to Okinawa. He finished his duty as a Crane Operator on Okinawa.
Hibakusha
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibakusha
There is considerable discrimination in Japan against the hibakusha. It is frequently extended toward their children as well: socially as well as economically. “Not only hibakusha, but their children, are refused employment,” says Mr. Kito. “There are many among them who do not want it known that they are hibakusha.”
—Studs Terkel (1984), The Good War.[31]