TOKYO LAID WASTE BY B-29’S, ROYAL PALACES DEVASTATED; FIGHTERS SMASH AT KYUSHU (5/27/45)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 5/27/45 | Warren Moscow, Bruce Rae, W.H. Lawrence, Kai Myring, Charles Hurd, Hanson W. Baldwin

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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THE NEWS OF THE WEEK IN REVIEW

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[Hebrews 11:6]

But not MacArthur?!

[henkster]

MacArthur did not need to know, as he would have no operational authority over the activities of 509th Composite Bomb Group. Apparently all information about the Manhattan Project was disseminated by one-on-one oral briefing, and only to those people who needed to know. Captain McVay of the USS Indianapolis did not know what she was carrying to Tinian. Only Col. Tibbets knew what the Enola Gay had in her bomb bay when they took off on August 6, none of the crew knew.

In military circles outside of Gen. Groves staff, it was a very short list of military officers who knew. And why should they have known? Nobody knew the bombs would actually work; not even the scientists who designed them. (They were pretty sure the Uranium bomb would “work,” but they had no idea what the yield would be. The Plutonium bombs were a guess until Trinity.) The military had to plan to finish the war as though there were no atomic weapons.

[colorado tanker]

Washington communicated with field commanders by classified cable. No one working in those code rooms would be cleared for knowledge of Manhattan. So, the only way to communicate way by sending briefers overseas to personally brief the person in secret.

I read somewhere that Marshall discussed the issue of dropping the bomb with Ike and Bradley when visiting them but it was not an authoritative source. I don't know why they would be in the loop. No need to know there, but Marshall did seem to value their counsel.

[henkster]

But we scrapped the orders for 6 more Essex class carriers. I wonder if they are second-guessing that decision.

[henkster]

Most of the classified briefings were done by Army engineers assigned to the Manhattan District, and were able to convey what the bombs were all about. I wonder if Marshall was able to convey the same level of understanding to Ike and Bradley. All three of them were of a generation where atomic energy was not generally known.

Tibbets and his Manhattan consultants thought LeMay didn't really understand what the bomb was. Most of that generation looked at it as just a really big bomb, and not something totally new and world-changing. Hitler never "got" nuclear physics, referring to it as "Jewish science" so he didn't put any resources into Heisenberg's research.

Kind of like how I don't get Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and have trouble using Google Drive and Google Documents to share and edit as a group.

[colorado tanker]

I still only have the vaguest understanding of the physics of how nuclear weapons work. But I know they do.