Trinity, New Mexico July 16, 1945
The test bomb and its detonation device hung from the great iron tower twenty feet above ground for two days before the final test date, July 14th. Bastille Day.
Miles away in the observers’ station, the row of generals and scientists adjusted their binoculars. From here they could barely make out the iron tower that held the world’s first atomic bomb.
For General Leslie Groves the test today was the culmination of the last four years of his life’s work. To his right stood Enrico Fermi, the brilliant Italian physicist, still grumbling for the chewing out Groves had given him yesterday for taking wagers on whether the bomb’s nuclear chain reaction would ignite the atmosphere and incinerate the whole world--or just New Mexico.
To his left stood the civilian director, the unlucky man who’d replaced J. Robert Oppenheimer, the orginal director of the Manhattan Project. Tempers were still delicate around Alamogordo over the way FBI Director Edgar Hoover had blackballed the left-leaning Oppenheimer two years ago.
But all that was behind them now. Although they didn’t know how big the final blast would be, they expected it would be historic. In a corner a staff sergeant counted down the seconds. "If this bomb works," General Thomas Farrell predicted, "then the war is over."
As the sergeant got to "one," all eyes were glued to the iron speck on the horizon. At "zero" they all winced. Three seconds after zero they were licking their lips and starting to glance about. Yet there was nothing to react to.
At T plus eleven seconds the new civilian Director broke the silence. "I see a puff of smoke out there, Les." The phone rang and Director David Greenglass picked it up, nodded, and then addressed the room. "It’s the foreward observation post. They report hearing the boom from the detonator, but the Guillotine’s still standing. And the bomb’s intact, gentlemen.
"The war’s not over yet."
Moscow - October 1945
The fascists have been beaten in the west; Berlin and Germany are ours. Now it is time to destroy the Dragon in the east. In August, Red Army forces smashed through Japanese positions in Manchuria and invaded Northern Korea. Our American "allies" have nabbed Okinawa from Japan and are in the process of invading Kyushu. Comrade Stalin has other plans for Japan, however....
The test bomb and its detonation device hung from the great iron tower twenty feet above ground for two days before the final test date, July 14th. Bastille Day.
Miles away in the observers’ station, the row of generals and scientists adjusted their binoculars. From here they could barely make out the iron tower that held the world’s first atomic bomb.
For General Leslie Groves the test today was the culmination of the last four years of his life’s work. To his right stood Enrico Fermi, the brilliant Italian physicist, still grumbling for the chewing out Groves had given him yesterday for taking wagers on whether the bomb’s nuclear chain reaction would ignite the atmosphere and incinerate the whole world--or just New Mexico.
To his left stood the civilian director, the unlucky man who’d replaced J. Robert Oppenheimer, the orginal director of the Manhattan Project. Tempers were still delicate around Alamogordo over the way FBI Director Edgar Hoover had blackballed the left-leaning Oppenheimer two years ago.
But all that was behind them now. Although they didn’t know how big the final blast would be, they expected it would be historic. In a corner a staff sergeant counted down the seconds. "If this bomb works," General Thomas Farrell predicted, "then the war is over."
As the sergeant got to "one," all eyes were glued to the iron speck on the horizon. At "zero" they all winced. Three seconds after zero they were licking their lips and starting to glance about. Yet there was nothing to react to.
At T plus eleven seconds the new civilian Director broke the silence. "I see a puff of smoke out there, Les." The phone rang and Director David Greenglass picked it up, nodded, and then addressed the room. "It’s the foreward observation post. They report hearing the boom from the detonator, but the Guillotine’s still standing. And the bomb’s intact, gentlemen.
"The war’s not over yet."
Moscow - October 1945
The fascists have been beaten in the west; Berlin and Germany are ours. Now it is time to destroy the Dragon in the east. In August, Red Army forces smashed through Japanese positions in Manchuria and invaded Northern Korea. Our American "allies" have nabbed Okinawa from Japan and are in the process of invading Kyushu. Comrade Stalin has other plans for Japan, however....
