Technical & WWII Records

1939

  • Niels Bohr meets in Princeton warning scientist community about the first fission of Uranium core by germans.
  • Einstein writes Roosevelt encouraging him to start Nuclear investigations in the path to create innovative weapons.
  • March, Nazis takes Czechoslovakia (Uranium Mines).
  • September, Nazis takes Poland. WWII has begun.
  • Vannevar Bush, a scientist consultan of government, presides the mighty Carnegie Foundation and gather scientists, military and industrial sector. The first step to create the Military-Industrial Complex of United States.

1940

  • England have a very advanced Nuclear investigation laboratory in Cambridge. And decides collaborate with EEUU, delivering MAUD Dossier, to win the Nuclear Race to Germany and War probably.
  • Belgium and France fall down in three weeks by Germans (Wehrmacht).

The conclusion:

A big Uranium Bomb (20K) = 1800 Tn of TNT


Big Radiation

Long Time


Massive deaths


&
Dead Land

Great Idea!

  • Roosevelt decides to give the green light to forward the atomic researches even when EEUU keeps an isolationist position.
  • The American nuclear program undertakes in the best of secrecy without knowledge of the congress of EEUU.
  • The nuke physics disappear of scientists publications, High Security Reasons.

1941

  • December, the Japanese Imperial Army attacks Pearl Harbor. EEUU have reasons to participate in the WWII finally.
  • Roosevelt can join to the allies against the powerful axis of Japan, Germany and Italy. War burns the Pacific and extend itself by the five continents.

Military-Industrial Complex
& Manhattan Project

1942

  • The colonel Leslie Groves is recruited. The mission: forward the nuclear researches. Code Name: Manhattan Project.
  • Plutonium appears like an alternative and optimal material for the nuclear fission.
  • This investigations needs a great team of physics, engineers and scientists, Groves choose Robert oppenheimer, a young theoretical professor of Berkeley University, to leader such team.
  • Upper Katanga Mining Union, a Belgian mining company, guarantee supplies all the uranium for the manhattan project.
  • Summer, Germany abandon their nuclear program (Allies don't know). Petroleum is a primal target for their war.
  • The first artificial nuclear reactor was built by the Manhattan Project's Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, and was initiated in CP-1 on 2 December 1942, under the supervision of Enrico Fermi, who described the apparatus as "a crude pile of black bricks and wood".

Some industrial groups called:

  • Hiroshima must be destroyed to consolidate the Economic and Political power of the American Military-Industrial Complex.
  • Nagasaki would be bombed to contrast the destructive and production results between both formats of bombs: Uranium-235 and Plutonium.
  • Name: Richland, Hanford Engineering Works
  • Location: Hanford, Washington.
  • Type: Plutonium Plant.
  • Group: Dupont.
  • Name: Oak Ride, Clinton Engineering Works
  • Location: Oak Ride, Tennessee.
  • Type: Uranium-235 Plant.
  • Group: Monsanto & General Electric.
  • The Manhattan Project is spread throughout the US geography.

Installations Map of Manhattan Project

  • Groves compartmentalize the various departments of manufacturing to the utmost to preserve absolute secrecy.
  • Most employees will not know until the end of the war what they were actually working on.

Pioneers / Los Alamos

Vannevar Bush
The Political

Col. Leslie Groves
The Militar

Robert Oppenheimer
The Scientist

  • Los Alamos is the third big investigation center of the Manhattan Project.
  • In this place converge all the materials produced in the other industrial plants, with this they could build the first atomic bombs.

1943

  • Allies meet in Quebec, Great Britain and Canada join the Americans in their Nuclear Program
  • Canada have important Uranium mines. Will provide 4,000 Tns. of material until 1946.
  • War winds changes, exhausted by the raw winter, germans lose against the Russian Army in Stalingrado.
    Meanwhile:
  • Two years after to share the MAUD inform, around twenty british investigators join to Manhattan Project in Los Alamos.
  • The scientists live in a sort of family life into the installations, without exterior contact. The media age is 27 years old.
  • The first victims of this project are the scientists. Radiation poisoning appears in the atomic vocabulary and no one knows how could affect the health.

1944

  • Roosevelt and Churchill meets in Hide Park, New York.
  • The question: Warn the world about the power of the Nuclear Bomb? Talking about moral & ethical procedure.
  • Americans know the German Nuclear Program was abandoned two years before.
  • The soviets occupy Poland.
  • Americans takes Normandy and Sicily.
  • In the Pacific the US Army takes Saipan, Filippines, getting close to Japan.
  • The globe division begins between the Allies and Soviets.
  • Hiroshima must be destroyed to ensure the American advantage over the Soviets.

Potsdam Conference

"The three Amigos"
Winston Churchill, Harry Truman and Iósif Stalin

1945

  • April 12, Roosevelt dies. His successor: the Senator Harry Truman.
  • Truman don't know the atomic heritage he are receiving from Roosevelt, he understand soon the great decision waiting on his political agenda.
  • Iwo Jima and Okinawa are conquered by the American Army
  • May, Berlin falls. Germany surrenders.
  • Churchill realizes that Stalin claims Eastern Europe and calls Truman to meet.
  • Truman expects to know the results of atomic testing before gather.
  • EEUU prepares the future and the Bomb is the key to get this purpose. The prospect of a large-scale nuke industry begins to take shape.
    Meanwhile:
  • Alamo Gordo, July 16, 1945, all is ready to test the first Nuclear Bomb. Code name: Trinity.
  • They call it "The Gadget" a implossion bomb filling with plutonium. 150,000 people worked giving life the monster.
  • Results exceed expectations. Truman is informed inmediately, during the conference, about the succesfull test. America have now the absolute weapon, so they lead the talks. The Cold War Chapter One was writed.

The Great Bussines of War

The Bombs

  • CodeName: Little Boy
  • Design: Los Alamos Lab. (Project Y)
  • Weight: 9,700 pounds (4,400 kg)
  • Lenght: 10 feet (3.0 m)
  • Diameter: 28 inches (71 cm)
  • Filling: Uranium-235
  • Bombing Date: August 6, 1945
  • Casualties: 135,000
  • Target: Hiroshima
  • CodeName: Fat Man
  • Design: Los Alamos Lab. (Project Y)
  • Weight: 10,300 pounds (4,670 kg)
  • Lenght: 128 inches (3.3 m)
  • Diameter: 60 inches (1.5 m)
  • Filling: Plutonium
  • Bombing Date: August 9, 1945
  • Casualties: 64,000
  • Target: Nagasaki

Hiroshima & Nagasaki

August 6, 1945

  • The legend: The launch of the two atomic bombs saves millions lives, so it is a necessary evil, ending the WWII.
  • Actually, Hiroshima must be destroyed to show the militar powerful of EEUU.
  • From the american militar airport of Tinian the B-29 superfortress called Enola Gay take off with the target to bomb Hiroshima. A similar operation is previewed for August 9, the next target is Nagasaki.

Hiroshima

Distance from Zero Point (km) Killed Injured
Population
0 - 1.0 26,700 (86%) 3,000 (10%) 31,200
1.0 - 2.5 39,600 (27%) 53,000 (37%) 144,800
2.5 - 5.0 1,700 (2%) 20,000 (25%) 80,300
Total 68,000 (27%) 76,000 (30%) 256,300

Nagasaki

Distance from Zero Point (km) Killed Injured
Population
0 - 1.0 27,300 (88%) 1,900 (6%) 30,900
1.0 - 2.5 9,500 (34%) 8,100 (29%) 27,700
2.5 - 5.0 1,300 (11%) 11,000 (10%) 115,200
Total 38,100 (22%) 21,000 (12%) 173,800
BOOOOOOM!!
  • Hiroshima: The bomb is dropped from 9,000 meters high it's explode 40 seconds later 600 meters over the city.
  • The clocks stop at 08:15, the fire ball generated for the nuclear explosion reaches 1,000,000 degrees Celsius burning all the oxygen in its path.
  • The explosion kills around 70,000 people, other 70,000 will die because the radiation effects. 200,000 people survive they are the "Hibakushas", the radiated by the atomic bomb.
  • Nagasaki: August 9, around 80,000 people die after the explosion.
  • August 15, the Emperor Hiroito talks to the people annunciating the capitulation of Japan.
  • Less of one month later the americans occupy Japan, commanded by Douglas MacArthur who plays like Chief of Staff of the United States Army during this period.
  • A effective propaganda campaign by EEUU takes charge to minimize the damage considered after that massacre, cleaning the american image.
  • Groves and Oppenheimer sell The Nuclear Bomb to the public opinion as a "clean bomb".

America wins the war!

Epilogue

  • At the end of 1945 in New york scientists, industrials and military meet in a congress talking about the atom's future, and how to use the atomic energy with peaceful purposes.
  • "Peaceful" this word ends the Hiroshima and Nagasaki chapter and open the path to create a civil nuclear industry. Nuclear energy conquer the world and becomes a industrial economic power.
  • Progress is the "the leitmotif" without consult the people, and the paroxysm of the progress is the nuke energy.

The regret and warn