On Sunday, July 15, 1945, at around 11 pm Mountain War Time, New York Times reporter and in-house Manhattan Project historian (or propagandist, some would say) William L. Laurence joined the project’s scientists on a caravan of buses, trucks, and cars heading out of Albuquerque. Their destination: the New Mexico desert, about 125 miles to the southeast, to witness the first atomic bomb detonation in history. None of the bomb’s creators knew whether the test—codenamed “Trinity”—would be successful. One of the scientists even speculated that the blast could ignite the nitrogen in the earth’s atmosphere and end human civilization.
When the caravan reached its destination—the Alamogordo Bombing Range in the desert basin known as the Jornada del Muerto (translated into English “dead’s man’s journey”)—the night sky was dark with black clouds, Laurence later recalled, except for an occasional, foreboding bolt of lightning. The group was given strict instructions about what to do when the bomb went off: Lie prone on the ground, face down, head facing away from ground zero. Do not look at the bomb’s flash directly. Stay on the ground until the blast wave passed. Someone produced a bottle of sunscreen, and the scientists passed it around, rubbing it into their faces and arms in the dark.
MORE-WiscoDave
The Trinity site is open one day a year. If you are ever in the area and the time works, go see it.
ReplyDeleteOne of my uncles was in the Army in the 60's, and was told he would qualify for early discharge if he went through some specialized training. That training turned out to be that he was one of the soldiers in the trenches at an atomic bomb blast. He spent some time with various family members after his discharge and my Dad asked him what he learned in his training. He said "If they ever start setting those things off I'm going to find a hole and crawl in." The cancer that killed him a few decades later was spread through his entire body.
ReplyDeleteThey wrens their clothing over Japanese survivors but Americans were never notified, warned, or encouraged to leave. Reparations for blacks whose families were possibly slaves over 150 years ago but jack shit for Trinity survivors.
ReplyDeleteThis is just so fucked up.
Our government is evil. Not only did they expose people to radiation in the wake of nuclear testing, the US government deliberately tested biological agents all across the state of Florida in 1968, and invited foreign governments to observe. It was called project 112.
Deletehttps://areaocho.com/what-is-rural/
Many people wouldn't have heard of the Trinity Test
ReplyDeleteYou know this could explain some of the dumb shit that New Mexico is known for
ReplyDeleteJD
Brief abstract of a true story: Sometime in the 50’s hospitals in the mid-west began seeing spots on their x rays. They wouldn’t happen all the time and would come and go with no rhyme or reason. So they contacted Kodak and asked: What’s up with your x ray film.
ReplyDeleteKodak sends a guy out from their NYC offices to investigate. With a super incredible stroke of luck he discovers the problem. When they did atomic test out west it would blast dirt and dust into the upper atmosphere. That dirt/dust was dropping out over the mid-west. When it rained it would wash that into the streams which fed the river which Kodak was using in the production of its x ray film.
Kodak contacts the US Gov’t and says Your tests are damaging our film. US gov’t says keep your mouth shut and we’ll pay for any damages. That’s what Kodak did. An agreement was reached where Kodak would be notified before anymore tests were done. As for the people living in that hellscape or drinking radiated particles from that river...me’h.
Sometime later the guy who discovered the problem was back in his NYC office sitting at his desk. All of a sudden the gieger counter sitting on his desk starts going berserk. Then he hears someone in the office exclaim “Look everybody it’s snowing!” So when those people thought they were walking in a winter wonderland they were actually being irradiated.
Reminds me of my favorite Weird Al song, Christmas at Ground Zero. When I worked as a janitor at the Cayuga County(NY) nursing home, I would make my rounds singing that song and getting residents and staff to join me in singing it. I've only watched the video a few hundred times.
ReplyDeleteListening to that song reminded me of another story. In the Soviet Union, like many countries, bomber crews would be rotated in and out. After one briefing to a Soviet Bomber Wing a new navigator went up to the instructor and ask to ask a question. The navigator said that the attack coordinates and references into the US were extremely detailed while the return coordinates were extremely basic. The instructor laughed and put his arm around the navigators shoulders and said "Do you really believe you're going to make it back."
DeleteMany wrongs were done. Many of those are continued today. At the time, there was a tearing hurry to achieve the Weapon. The alternative was the invasion of Japan, in which my future father did not participate because it didn't happen. Some of the Purple Heart medals awarded to this day are from stocks manufactured in anticipation of the invasion.
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