OLDNAVYMCPO
US Veteran, Absent Comrade
On this day in 1945, the first atomic bomb was exploded at Los Alamos, NM. Changed the world forever.
THE ATOMIC AGE
- Thread starter OLDNAVYMCPO
- Start date
Register to hide this ad
500SNW
Member
My Mom would have been 5 years old. She told me a story about the time her Mother - who'd never ever driven before - packed her and her baby brother into a car and drove back to Cincinnati from California. They'd heard a "big boom" when driving through the desert. Over 70 years later, she's still wondering if it was one of the Nuclear bomb tests
The Manhattan Project....
Was that a great effort or WHAT?!
Was that a great effort or WHAT?!
I'll never knock....
I'll never knock the making of the bomb or using it in WWII. But what was stupid was what was done with it AFTER the war.
I'll never knock the making of the bomb or using it in WWII. But what was stupid was what was done with it AFTER the war.
ParadiseRoad
Member
OP
OLDNAVYMCPO
US Veteran, Absent Comrade
Remembering the Early Days
Like many of you, I'm old enough to remember the atomic attack drills at school, the CD shelters in town and the CD stockpiling of food and water in public buildings.
My dad was career army, I remember his lectures on what we were to do if we were home alone in the event of an attack. I remember my parents buying extra groceries each month and stocking cans of food in the basement. Dad would collect the wax impregnated half gallon milk cartons, slice them down the corners and stuff them into a carton with the top cut off. This was to be a fuel source in the event of a nuclear winter. The basement was stocked with gallons of bottled water.
This was in the 50's and early 60's, the threat of a nuclear war was taken more seriously then than now. It seems as though we have grown complacent.
Like many of you, I'm old enough to remember the atomic attack drills at school, the CD shelters in town and the CD stockpiling of food and water in public buildings.
My dad was career army, I remember his lectures on what we were to do if we were home alone in the event of an attack. I remember my parents buying extra groceries each month and stocking cans of food in the basement. Dad would collect the wax impregnated half gallon milk cartons, slice them down the corners and stuff them into a carton with the top cut off. This was to be a fuel source in the event of a nuclear winter. The basement was stocked with gallons of bottled water.
This was in the 50's and early 60's, the threat of a nuclear war was taken more seriously then than now. It seems as though we have grown complacent.
DWalt
Member
I remember food hoarding in the early 1950s - Ads on TV and in newspapers discouraging food hoarding which everyone ignored. My parents kept a fairly substantial supply of canned food in the basement anyway. What with the Korean War going on at the time, no one knew if the Russians or Chinese might turn it into a nuclear war. Remember that MacArthur wanted to nuke bases across the border in China and Truman fired him for that.
In our school, they had olive drab drums of water stored in the basement, along with similar drums of some kind of food. We had been told it was survival crackers, but I never knew what it was. All this despite the fact we lived in an area which was an extremely unlikely nuke target unless the Russians wanted to wipe out cornfields and tobacco farms. I also remember the school "Duck and Cover" drills - as if that would do any good.
It was also a big time for building fallout shelters in your back yard. We had an abandoned concrete water cistern in our yard (a holdover from the days when there was no water system in that area) and my father was talking about converting it into a fallout shelter. But he never did it. Things were scary then.
In our school, they had olive drab drums of water stored in the basement, along with similar drums of some kind of food. We had been told it was survival crackers, but I never knew what it was. All this despite the fact we lived in an area which was an extremely unlikely nuke target unless the Russians wanted to wipe out cornfields and tobacco farms. I also remember the school "Duck and Cover" drills - as if that would do any good.
It was also a big time for building fallout shelters in your back yard. We had an abandoned concrete water cistern in our yard (a holdover from the days when there was no water system in that area) and my father was talking about converting it into a fallout shelter. But he never did it. Things were scary then.
Last edited:
vonn
US Veteran
Pretty much the same story here,the WW II vets knew how bad a war might be and how close to happening it was.
bigwheelzip
Absent Comrade
Or at least the half-life of forever.
I got a chance to work for the DOE at one of the Manhattan Project sites, and still remember the part of the safety training that spelled out the effects of different amounts of radiation exposure ended with "Instant Molecular Destruction". Ouch!
Tex1001
Member
As they were preparing for the first test, there was a REAL fear that the heat would ignite the atmosphere and burn the Earth to a crisp.
_______________________
I don't have Alzheimer's- My wife had me tested.
_______________________
I don't have Alzheimer's- My wife had me tested.
DWalt
Member
For those interested, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes (Simon & Schuster 1987), is a very detailed treatment of the development of the atomic bomb (actually two different atomic bombs) and discusses virtually every important scientific discovery from the late 19th century onward that led up to it. Heavy reading, but well worthwhile. It's a thick book so it will take a while to get through it. I read it about two years ago.
Last edited:
Changed the world for the better.
If we hand't nuked Japan, more of our boys would be dead. It was the classic "better them than us" at the time and the only option to avoid a full blown land assault invasion which would have left millions dead on both sides.
If we hand't nuked Japan, more of our boys would be dead. It was the classic "better them than us" at the time and the only option to avoid a full blown land assault invasion which would have left millions dead on both sides.
DWalt
Member
Interesting that the development of the American A-Bomb was undertaken because it was believed that Hitler was already well along in nuclear weapon development, and the initial idea was to use the U. S. A-Bomb on Germany. However, the German efforts in that direction were very minimal, and a German A-Bomb was never a possibility. Plus V-E day came along long before the U. S. bomb was even tested. The book I mentioned previously devotes a great deal of discussion about exactly how and why the final decision was made to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Turns out much of that decision was the result of political calculus between the interests of the USA and the Soviet Union rather than simply as a means of avoiding a U. S. invasion of the Japanese home islands which, for numerous reasons, probably wouldn't have occurred even with no bomb available.
Last edited:
OMCHamlin
US Veteran
During the 60's, we lived next to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds & Edgewood Arsenal. Neighbors had completed, stocked shelters, dad started one, then stopped, figuring with our location, it was pointless. I was born in Germany in '61, so we lived in the middle of the cold war in several places. I also remember drills and alerts in Heidelberg in '70. Back then, they figured six days before the reds reached the Rhine...
Of course then, in '83, I joined the Navy and was promptly stationed in Groton, good thing THAT wasn't a target for the russkies, right?
Of course then, in '83, I joined the Navy and was promptly stationed in Groton, good thing THAT wasn't a target for the russkies, right?
Last edited:
armenius
US Veteran
I was piloting one of the 6 T-33 aircraft which penetrated the mushroom cloud of the Fizeau Bomb 14 September 1957 during the Operation Plumbbob Nuclear tests.An unbelievable experience.The shot was before noon,we were at 20 thousand feet about 10 miles away.At the shot my head was in my lap, RayBans on, visor down and I sensed the intense light as if a flash bulb had gone off in my lap. After 5 seconds I looked out to see the most awful,colorful ball of fire with the shock wave running across the desert lifting everything it encountered. In a couple of minutes a towering mushroom formed and was at our altitude.
Most Americans don’t know how close we were to nuclear war in the 1950’s . Our Air Defense Squadron and later others had Interceptors armed with Air to Air nuclear missiles. The Russians tested our defenses and we probed theirs. It wasn’t known till years later that Gen. Curtis LeMay actually had SAC B-47 bombers flying over Russia.
Nuclear war would be the last war.
Most Americans don’t know how close we were to nuclear war in the 1950’s . Our Air Defense Squadron and later others had Interceptors armed with Air to Air nuclear missiles. The Russians tested our defenses and we probed theirs. It wasn’t known till years later that Gen. Curtis LeMay actually had SAC B-47 bombers flying over Russia.
Nuclear war would be the last war.
Some debate as to Herr Hitler and how close he was to a fission bomb.
New light on Hitler's bomb - physicsworld.com
The Third Reich: How Close Was Hitler to the A-Bomb? - SPIEGEL ONLINE
DWalt
Member
Werner Heisenberg, Hitler's top nuclear physicist, was targeted for an OSS assassination, but it was never carried out.
" In the summer of 1944 a new effort was launched, this time led by Moe Berg, a former major league catcher who spoke seven languages and was a special agent of the Office of Strategic Services.
Heisenberg traveled to Zurich in December 1944 to give a lecture at the Federal Technical College. Berg, a gun in his pocket, met Heisenberg there, posing in the audience as an interested Swiss visitor. Berg's instructions were simply to size up the German scientist, then 43 years old. But if Heisenberg seemed to suggest that a Nazi atomic bomb was eminent, Berg was instructed to kill him on the spot.
Berg watched and listened. He decided that Heisenberg's eyes were sinister. But he did nothing.
A few days later, Berg accompanied his quarry back to a Zurich hotel after a dinner party, chatting amiably, trying to draw out Heisenberg's feelings about the Nazi regime.
In reports prepared for Washington, Berg said that the prospects for the German bomb effort were exceedingly dim and that Heisenberg might be ready to defect."
" In the summer of 1944 a new effort was launched, this time led by Moe Berg, a former major league catcher who spoke seven languages and was a special agent of the Office of Strategic Services.
Heisenberg traveled to Zurich in December 1944 to give a lecture at the Federal Technical College. Berg, a gun in his pocket, met Heisenberg there, posing in the audience as an interested Swiss visitor. Berg's instructions were simply to size up the German scientist, then 43 years old. But if Heisenberg seemed to suggest that a Nazi atomic bomb was eminent, Berg was instructed to kill him on the spot.
Berg watched and listened. He decided that Heisenberg's eyes were sinister. But he did nothing.
A few days later, Berg accompanied his quarry back to a Zurich hotel after a dinner party, chatting amiably, trying to draw out Heisenberg's feelings about the Nazi regime.
In reports prepared for Washington, Berg said that the prospects for the German bomb effort were exceedingly dim and that Heisenberg might be ready to defect."
crstrode
Member
Thank God for the A-Bomb! My father was a WW2 vet that was part of an advance team on their way to Japan in preparation for invasion. He was on the beach to welcome Marines that went there to make sure it was safe for MacArthur to make a grand entrance.
If not for the nuclear-induced surrender of the Japs, Dad would most likely have had a tough time in Tokyo.
Subsequently, I worked for 35 years as an Engineer at the Hanford site where the plutonium was made for the life-saving A-bombs.
During the spring of 1944 at Klessheim Castle near Salzburg, Hitler had tried to reassure Mussolini on the final outcome of the war. He had confided to him that he possessed a bomb that would “upset the world”, and a number of other secret weapons that would soon be ready for use.
Mussolini sent Luigi Romersa, a reporter for a Milan newspaper, Corriere della Sera to Berlin with letters for Goebbels and Hitler requesting more information on Hitler's secret weapons including the bomb. For years Romersa has been telling the story of how he visited Goebbels first then Hitler in October 1944 and then was flown to an island in the Baltic Sea. Romersa says that he was taken to a dugout where he witnessed an explosion that produced a bright light, and that men wearing protective suits warned him that they could not leave the dugout for several hours. They then drove him away from the site, telling him that what he had witnessed was a "fission bomb." Accordino to Romersa’s notes, the Germans had not yet managed to build a detonator, a key element for the functioning, and they worked frantically to solve this problem.
From Mission for Mussolini, (2006)
