Showing posts with label Manhattan Project. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Manhattan Project. Show all posts

Sunday, July 8, 2018

CC2 (part 2) - Trinity

Trinity Detonation/wikipedia.com

Near Socorro, New Mexico
July 16, 1945


The first atomic bomb exploded at the Trinity Site. 

It was the culmination of The Manhattan Project which birthed the weapon designed to bring an end to World War II.

smithsk


Today 

There is a brass plaque on an obelisk that reads – “TRINITY SITE WHERE THE WORLD’S FIRST NUCLEAR DEVICE WAS EXPLODED ON JULY 16, 1945.”

But back then

Here is the story of what happened that day in the words of  Elsie McMillan, wife of physicist Edwin McMillan, who worked on the Manhattan Project:


In 2008, I visited the site (opened twice a year to the public) at White Sands. And I wrote about it in the article reference below:

*  The Trinity Site: Where the first atomic bomb was exploded
     (published in   TravelThruHistory.com. November 18, 2009)


The same Trinity site is mentioned in Counting Coup: Book 2 of The Commander and the Chief series: 


Dr. Nova Orlovic, "The Chief," rendezvouses with Premier Yasser Nasser--Dictator of the Desert--in his massively complex bunker. She is escorted by her nephew,  freelance journalist Nick Orlovic III.

Nova comes bearing Native American gifts and Yasser tells her what he wants from her:



“What’s that in your other hand?”

“A present from my people.” Nova held up Kaya’s dream catcher.

The Premier invited Nick to his other side. An aide snapped a picture of Nova presenting the Dictator of the Desert with her Native American artwork. After the camera flashed, Yasser bowed. “I’m most honored by this precious gift, Chief Orlovic. Made this yourself?” 

“I’m afraid I’m not that crafty, Premier.” Nova returned a self-deprecating smile. “It was made by a dear friend, a Cheyenne Indian lady.”

Then Yasser gushed forth praise for his guest of honor. As Nova was a Native American Indian, he considered her a victim of the white male oppressors of the West. Yet Yasser overlooked that her father was a white man. And Nova didn’t think it prudent to remind him of that right now.

Following the Premier’s lead, Nova and Nick settled into a couch and partook of tea and hummus appetizers, set before them on a coffee table. From a drawer, Yasser pulled out the Ms. Indian Summer issue of Gentleman’s Delight. He wanted the Chief to autograph it, and Nova did so, using the moniker, Dr. No.

After a good belly laugh, Yasser explained that from Ms. Indian Summer, he had learned many things about her. He flipped to a picture of Nova in a white leather bikini holding a Geiger counter, asking, “When August Adolf chose you for his Gentleman’s Lady, you were nuclear physicist, no?” 

“I guess seeing me squat in front of that Ground Zero obelisk at Trinity, New Mexico—which just so happens to be the place where the world’s first atomic bomb exploded,” Nova let out a chuckle, “that gave me away.”

from Part 6: In the Belly of the Beast, Chapter 2: Tiger Lily

More?

The book is available in paperback or eBook (kindle, Nook) form. Likewise, the first book, His Tribe of One, and its sequel, Peacemaker.


Details here: The Commander and the Chief Series



Cheers! 
Your readership is appreciated.

---------------------------------------
---------------------------------------





Peacemaker, Book Three:

CC3 (part 1) - Peacemaker  (2017)



---------------------------------------
---------------------------------------

photo: Trinity Detonation/wikipedia.com

Saturday, August 3, 2013

America's Story (part 13) - The Enola Gay

Wikipedia/Co Tibbets - the Enola Gay

What's in a name?

Ships so often are named after women.  And even airships ... we call them airplanes. ;)  And the Enola Gay was one of them.

This Boeing B-29 bomber was named after her commander's mother - Enola Gay Haggard Tibbets.   The commander's name back then in 1945 was  Colonel Paul Tibbets.   And the mission of this bomber hastened the end of the most deadly war in the 20th century, if not in human history  - World War Two.  

(For an interesting set of statistics of causalities of war by death toll:  - Wikipedia - List of wars by death toll.  World War Two tops the list.)

Worst of all previous recorded wars ...

World War Two (1939 - 1945) was very intense.  Its precursor was Kristallnacht: The November 1938 Pogroms.   But the Blitzkrieg of September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, was the tipping point.  Great Britain and France sent an ultimatum to Hitler to withdraw or they would go to war.  And Hitler ignored them, going deeper into Poland; and hence Britain and France declared war on Germany.  

World War Two ... it was on!   (reference:  World War II Starts)

Meanwhile, the allies of Germany, like Japan, fueled their entrance into the war in the Pacific with their aggressive military expansion.  (reference:  Causes of World War II in the Pacific )

The US was reluctant to get involved, but  Pearl Harbor changed all that.  After the United States declared war on Japan, Germany declared war on the United States - interesting enough, America was the only country in which Hitler declared war.  (reference:  Germany World War II -- declaration of war on America)

But with the United States, World War Two began and ended in the Pacific ...

Below is a timeline of the war in the Pacific theater:



On the road to nukes ...

As nuclear fission was discovered in 1938, (reference:  Discovery of Nuclear Fission) and atomic power seemed possible, Leo Szilard feared that Nazi Germany may be the first to create the atomic bomb.  Frustrated with America's lack of action in pursuing atomic energy, Szilard recruited Albert Einstein to write a letter to President Roosevelt.  It became known as the Einstein letter.  And it spurred the formation of the Manhattan Project.

The culmination was the development of the Atomic Bomb, first tested - July 16, 1945 - in New Mexico at the Trinity Site.   I had written an article about that place:  THE TRINITY SITE: WHERE THE FIRST ATOMIC BOMB WAS EXPLODED

Victory in Europe (VE Day) ...

A few months before the Trinity test, Germany surrendered to the Allies on May 7, 1945 - days after Hitler committed suicide in the his bunker on April 30.    But the war was still raging on in Pacific.  (Reference:  World War II Battles - Pacific Theater 1941-1945 - Google Maps.)

The Enola Gay and August 6, 1945 ...

August 6, 1945 was the day that the Enola Gay flew her secret mission - the culmination of the Manhattan project.  And here an eyewitness account of one of the crew members, who was part of that mission to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima:




A personal story and eye witness ...

One of my friends, who passed away a few years ago, was a navy veteran and had served during World War Two.  He told me he was aboard a ship off the coast of Japan and saw the atomic blast of Hiroshima from a few hundred miles away.  Amazing.  But it is still was not over.

Victory in Japan (VJ Day)  ...

After the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan surrendered, unconditionally, and officially on September 2, 1945.  

Much has been said and written about about the horror of nuclear weapons - and rightly so.   And it's still intensely debated - Was it necessary to drop the atom bomb on Japan?  

But many believed this hastened the end of the war and saved many lives.  Among them may have been my father-in-law.  He fought in World War Two in both the North African and European theaters.  He was there on D-Day + 4.  And, if the war had not ended a few months later, he would have been slated to be deployed to fight against Japan.  Perhaps, he would have become another grim statistic, one of the millions of causalities of that war.

The mission of the Enola Gay hastened the end of World War Two - the worst in the 20th century - and up to that point, perhaps the worst of all recorded history.

And America's part of ending World War Two is part of America's Story,
which will be continued ....

--------------------
--------------------

Posts on World War Two:

Pearl Harbor Day, 1941 - World War Two Soldiers Remembered  (2009)


--------------------
--------------------

Other posts in this series:

America's Story (part 1) - The Speech that redefined us, November 19, 1863 (2011)

America's Story (part 2) - Savages! (2011)

America's Story (part 3) - Over There - 1917, 1941 (2011)

America's Story (part 4) - Christmas 1944, when we said NUTS to the enemy (2011)

America's Story (part 5) - Amazing Grace (2012)

America's Story (part 6) - GI Joe Tuskegee Airmen (2012)

America's Story (part 7) - When Reagan was shot (2012)

America's Story (part 8) - Memorial Day, Gettysburg, and Amos Humiston (2012)





--------------------
--------------------

Photo from:

Wikipedia - Colonel Tibbets and the Enola Gay