The Atomic Bomb: Part 2 - The Bomb in Use

"Hooray," thought the Americans. "We have the bomb! So... now what?"

What happens when you detonate a nuke underwater.
The centre is a massive column of water. They sought to test
"what happens when we blow up a bomb under the ocean?"
and came up with "it explodes". 

Bombing Germany was no longer necessary. They had just surrendered a few months prior to the full development and trial of the nuke, and unless the Americans wanted to prove a point, they weren't planning on using it on them anytime soon (unless in an unlikely Zombie Hitler scenario). So that leaves Japan, the never surrender, everything for the Emperor fighters that in spite of everything around them refuse to back down. The scientists were fifty-fifty with the rather obvious moral implications. Dropping a bomb on a Japanese city is no longer attacking soldiers - it's all civilian casualties, and a massive number of them in one fell swoop. However, to perpetuate the war for however long the Japanese were planning on holding out for (which may well have been to the very last able bodied soldier went down) would have meant losing a great number of American soldiers and postponed the end of the horrors of war. That might not play well with a public (and army) that is weary of battle and believes they have an option to eliminate the enemy without the loss of their own. It's a loaded question with no easy answer - but that's not what we're here to discuss.

Years later, Apollo Creed called out the
Russians in a similar fashion. Living
in America...

The much better route would have been negotiating an unconditional surrender. There was just one burning word in there that the Japanese couldn't accept; "unconditional". They wished to oversee their own war crimes trial, to keep their Emperor, and avoid occupation. The Americans disagreed with the terms, and the "Little Boy" was placed in a B-29 bomber and dropped over Hiroshima. Exploding well above the ground, a ten thousand degree blast levelled a whole quarter mile with a shockwave that pushed out much further. 80,000 die in something that has never been seen in war before; that many losses from one person flying one bomb with one plane - it wasn't an army and there were no risks, but that level of destruction was now on the table at a moment's notice. Even then, the Japanese would not surrender and the "Fat Man" bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. 70,000 were killed. 

This is all common knowledge. What isn't as well known is that Nagasaki wasn't the original target; Kokura was meant to be the victim of the Fat Man but a cloudy day prevented it. Clear skies in Nagasaki is what doomed those people to a fiery death, the blast strong enough to sometimes leave haunting shadowy imprints from where their bodies absorbed the heat. The Japanese Army still did not wish to surrender, but deferred to the Emperor's wishes to finally give in. President Truman says it was unconditional in a speech to the public, but that isn't entirely true - they accepted the condition of keeping their Emperor in which the Japanese held so dear.

The arms race officially begins once Stalin sees pictures of the devastation wrought at Hiroshima. Stalin was not surprised at the knowledge that the Americans had the bomb as he had not one but two men on the inside at Los Alamos. Klaus Fuchs was a communist that sent information back to Stalin. One could say he was Klaus to Fuchs-ing up the operation until the Americans focussed on Stalin the flow of information to the Soviets. (YES!) A second soviet in disguise, Theodore Hall, was also found to be sending information. He must have had a Hall of a time explaining that one. (DOUBLE YES!)

"Sweet Enola Gay, son!"
It was said the bomb was detonated from the height of the man's
shorts on the left.

The post-bombing world effectively started the Cold War, full of proxy battles, Doomsday Clocks, and a whole bunch of movies about Vietnam (Platoon, Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now 2: Apocalypse Yesterday). Russia was eager to get the bomb and had their own team working on it, and the Americans were eager to perfect it. The Los Alamos lab grew rapidly and tests become far more common. The first mass produced bomb is created, and suddenly you have something capable of dealing out massive quantities of death indiscriminately and all the time it takes to make them is about a week (or half a fortnight). 

To make matters worse, and when the Cold War really kicks off, is when Russia produces their first atomic bomb. Suddenly, they're on the same level as the U.S. again, capable of destroying them just as surely as the States could destroy the Soviets. Nuclear arsenals mount for decades, and fear becomes the predominant emotion of the civilian population as the idea that their lives could be snuffed out at any given moment. That prospect is not only a possibility but a very real and not unlikely one. 

Plus, in the early '70s, Canada heroically defeated the Soviet Union in hockey, which left them really cheesed off. 

The Atomic Bomb: Part 1 - Putting it Together

Thankfully, there aren't a lot of things in the world that could wipe out humanity. Sure, nature has a few tricks up her sleeve (I'm looking at you, Yellowstone National Park) but we've for the most part limited our self-destruction to non-human-race-ending mechanisms. That is, until the bomb. No, not the classic Nintendo game Bomberman 64 - nor Bomberman Ultra, nor Bomberman Jetters, Bomberman Generation, Bomberman Hero, Bomberman Quest or... well, any of the Bomberman series that's put together in the 40 minute YouTube clip about the series' history. I mean the atomic bomb, the one that is capable of knocking out cities and irradiating what it doesn't flatten. The kind of bombs that the world had 60,000 of at one time, and still has well over 10,000. It wouldn't be the blast that would kill the Earth - more so, it would the the drastic changes it atmosphere. Think of global warming, but sped up, but only after a nuclear winter. Similar to volcanoes, dust would cloud the sky and block out the sun, lowering the Earth's temperature enough to cause crop yields to drop, leading to horrible famines. It would also knock out the o-zone, which, if you haven't been listening to the news lately, is really nothing but a negative. 

So how did we come to possess these weapons, and why?

Robert Oppenheimer with Albert Einstein, working
diligently on a crossword puzzle.

In Germany, 1938, scientists discovered they could split the nucleus in the uranium atom - discovering fission. Out of a very small amount of material, they could now produce an absolutely enormous amount of energy. Out of that information, the Allied countries feared that the Nazis were on the verge of creating an atomic bomb. Nazi atomic bombs is about as fear-inducing a stretch of words that could be said while on the brink of a world war. (It would also make a great band name!) Even the U.S., despite not entering the war for some time, were wary of this. Any major power with an unmatched weapon is going to cause an alarm. Right away, Roosevelt authorized a project to get down and dirty with uranium in an attempt to get that bomb before anyone else could. He tasks General Leslie Groves to do this, although it seemed at the time like an impossible task, and perhaps a bit of a career killer. Regardless, Groves then scoured the U.S. in an attempt to round up the best scientists America had to offer, choosing to place Robert Oppenheimer at the helm. It was a team of America's best and brightest, with the average age being... wait, 25?! Groves must have chosen the scientists like television would have cast them - choose mid-twenty year olds regardless of whether it makes sense or not.

Originally thought to be a picture taken within the first
few milliseconds of the Trinity Test, this photo has
been proven to be a pimple.

They took the team of scientists and sent them to Los Alamos, a place built for them to work on the bomb in solitude. The British sent over a number of scientists as well, one of them a German-born communist by the name of Klaus Fuchs. (Remember him for future blogs; I'll likely make a pun on his last name.) They had to be isolated and completely in secret because any slip of information could turn the tide of the whole war. Communication with the outside world was minimal, as there had to be no distractions. This is where the this rag-tag bunch of youngsters begin to build what they refer to only as "the gadget" - the bomb's blueprint and shell, as well as the method in which it detonates. After a while, they figured out how it would work but they had one major hang-up; what are they going to put in it that was actually going to explode?

What they used to drop the bomb in the Trinity
Test. The clouds, sensing the danger, are
bidding a hasty retreat.

It was no easy task; fuel for these explosions was not very easy to come by. Uranium was the prime candidate, but it takes a very long time to strip what you need from it to make it useable. Naturally occurring uranium doesn't cut it (because science) and you need this special kind of uranium that is within regular uranium. Or something. Again, science. Anyways, Groves had a giant complex built to extract it but when you're getting this stuff one atom at a time, it wasn't going to be able to destroy anything any time soon - even if you only needed a few pounds of it. Out of luck on that front, they searched for a new substance to replace uranium and arrived at the more spacey sounding plutonium, which would serve the same explosive purpose. However, plutonium can be manufactured (harvested? created? conjured? I'm not sure how plutonium comes to be) much faster, so Groves went and had another set of buildings created to produce plutonium instead. Remember that this is wartime here; if something needs to get done, it gets done. Cost is irrelevant. It's like giving a credit card to a teenage girl in a shopping mall; you're going to have a lot more things, a lot less money, and you're not entirely sure if you need any of it.

The bomb was created and ready for testing after three years and two billion dollars (but old two billion dollars, so think of a much larger number to convert it to modern day currency, then add a zero). The Trinity Test was the first run at a nuclear bomb, and it was hoisted up a short drop from the ground - notably without the explosive inside (they had mattresses underneath it in case it fell - the whole operation costs billions and they use the same method of cushioning that boys use to practice backflips as teenagers). They then brought in the plutonium, delivered by car in the most casual fashion, and placed the explosive material inside. They retreated to a safe distance and ran the test.

From there, they watched a monumental moment in history. Now, I know, I know, that's a cliche - but if ever there's a time to use it it's then. The atomic age was upon them in a massive blast of ash and fire, and from then on war would never be the same.