• gunpowder, machine-gun, torpedo, submarine, tank
• B-17 Flying Fortress, radar, jet fighter, V-1, V-2
• Office of Scientific Research and Development

Einstein and Szilard in Germany, from Einstein pictures

Origins - 1933-39

• "As the light changed to green and I crossed the street, it... suddenly occurred to me that if we could find an element which is split by neutrons and which would emit two neutrons when it absorbs one neutron, such an element, if assembled in sufficiently large mass, could sustain a nuclear chain reaction." (Rhodes p. 28)

1933 emigres join 1918 Hungarian emigres who fled the White Terror of Nicholas Horthy:

• von Karman, de Hevesy, Polanyi, Szilard, Wigner, von Neuman, Teller, Einstein to Princeton in October

• in Berlin; published Feb. 15, 1939

Bohr in Germany, with Einstein, Frank, Rabi, from Einstein pictures

Aug. 15 - Szilard/Einstein letter written

Sept. 1 - Poland invaded

Sept. 15 - Werner Heisenberg led German bomb project at Kaiser Wilhelm Institute

Oct. 11 - Alexander Sachs gives FDR his own summary of the Einstein letter

Oct. 21 - Advisory Committee on Uraniun under Lyman Briggs of Bureau of Standards

• $6000 contract for graphite for Fermis Columbia Univ. measurements

Research - Phase 1 - 1940

M. Stanley Livingston (L) and Ernest O. Lawrence in front of 27-inch cyclotron at the old Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, 1934 (NWDNS-434-RF-25(1) ) from NAIL

• $40,000 contract to Fermi and Szilard Nov. 1 for a "pile"

Oct. - Radiation Lab at MIT under Edwin McMillan of Berkeley

• British radar

1941

Feb. 23 - Seaborg transmutes plutonium

• with Lawrences cyclotron at Berkeley

Mar. 17 - Lawrence convinced Alfred Loomis (Stimsons 1st cousin) and Arthur Compton to fund plutonium

Enrico Fermi, Italian-American physicist, received the 1938 Nobel Prize in physics for identifying new elements and discovering nuclear reactions by his method of nuclear irradiation and bombardment. He was born in Rome, Italy, on September 29, 1901, and died in Chicago, Illinois, on November 28, 1954 1943-1949 (NWDNS-434-OR-7(24)) from NAIL

June 1 - Office of Scientific Research and Development under V. Bush

July 15 - British MAUD report recommended low-yield U-235 bombs by 1943

Oct. 9 - FDR gave Bush full approval - Top Policy Group formed

Dec. 6 - decision to expand individual projects (funding at $1,200,000):

• Urey at Columbia
  • gaseous diffusion method of U235 from U238
• Lawrence at Berkeley
  • electromagnetic separation of U235 from U238
• Compton at Chicago
  • Met Lab to build a pile of U238 and graphite

Dec. 7 - Pearl Harbor

Dec. 18 - S-1 Committee replaced NDRC individual projects

• from research to development

Development - Phase 2 - 1942

• total cost would be $2B.

June - J. Roberrt Oppenheimer group at Berkeley worked on weapon design

• also Teller's Superbomb that would be developed after 1950
• but wife Kitty with her earlier husband Joe Dallet were communists, also mistress Jean Tatlock, who committed suicide Jan. 1944

Major General Leslie R. Groves, in charge of the Manhattan Project, 1942 (NWDNS-208-PU-83S(2) ) from NAIL

• bought 1250 tons uranium from Congo;
  • started world search for more
• bought 5200 acre Clinton reservation around Oak Ridge, Tenn.
  • built 55 mi. railroad, 300 mi. streets,
  • Y-12 complex for Lawrences electromagnetic separation method
  • (268 buildings, 20 football fields of Alpha and Beta
  • "racetracks", 13,540 tons silver);
  • $100,000,000 for K-25 complex
  • for Ureys gaseous diffusion method,
  • 40 football fields of tanks, pipes,
  • pumps (with Teflon seals)
  • but without workable barrier until 1945;
  • a 2100 column S-50 complex for Phil Abelsons
  • thermal diffusion method in 1944.
• bought Los Alamos boys school in N. Mex. for $440,000.
• bought 500,000 acres around Hanford, Wash., for $5,100,000 to allow DuPont to build 3 water-cooled "reactors" to make plutonium and 3 chemical separation plants "Queen Marys" 80'x65'x 800' to refine the plutonium (most automated factory in the world, as large as the auto industry)

Sept. 21 - 1st test flight of B-29 - 1600 already ordered; in one year, deliveries begin from Boeings Wichita plant; 3763 delivered by August 1945 at total cost of $3B.

B-29 construction

B-29 Enola Gay after strike at Hiroshima, entering hard-stand, 08/06/1945 (NWDNS-77-BT-91) from NAIL

B-29 construction

Dec. 2 - Fermi's Met Lab CP-1 pile at Chicago went critical for 4+ minutes - produced neutrons

1943

Feb. 16 - Vemork heavy water plant destroyed in Norway

April - Gen. Kenneth Wolfe put in charge of B-29 project by Hap Arnold; independent, strategic

• Chinese construct 4 bases with 8500 ft. runways near Chengtu

Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, atomic physicist and head of the Manhattan Project. ca1944 (NWDNS-434-OR-7(44) ) from NAIL

April - Oppenheimer's group moved to Los Alamos

• began "colloquia"
• Neddermeyer, Kistiakowsky, Parsons, Bacher, Bethe

May 25 - Oppenheimer to Fermi: "I should recommend delay if that is possible. In this connection I think that we should not attempt a plan unless we can poison food sufficient to kill half a million men, since there is no doubt that the actual number affected will, because of non-uniform distribution, be much smaller than this."

May 27 - Operation Gomorrah authorized for Hamburg

• intentional bombing of civilians kept secret

July 28 - first firestorm at Hamburg

• 8 sq. miles burned; 45,000 killed

• delayed V-1 until June 12, 1944

Nov. 16 - Vemork bombed

• ship Hydro blown up with 162 gal. heavy water

Nov. 29 - first B-29 is modified

• to carry 2' x 17' Thin Man uranium gun bomb
• and the 5' x 9' Fat Man plutonium implosion bomb

Dec. - Emilio Segre reduces gun bomb to 2' x 6' - now called Little Boy

Little Boy uranium bomb on trailer cradle in pit, bomb bay door in upper right-hand corner, 08/1945 (NWDNS-77-BT-115) from NAIL

Fat Man plutonium bomb being placed on trailer cradle in front of Assembly Building #2, 08/1945 (NWDNS-77-BT-187) from NAIL

Production - Phase 3 - 1944

• Frisch, Chadwick, Klaus Fuchs, Niels Bohr

Bohr, Felix Frankfurter seek openness: "We are in a completely new situation that cannot be resolved by war...It appeared to me that the very necessity of a concerted effort to forestall such ominous threats to civilization would offer quite unique opportunities to bridge international divergencies."

Mar. 3 - B-29 drops first "pumpkin"

• Tibbets trains 509th group
• 225 officers, 1542 enlisted men

April 15 - "Battle of Kansas" settles on modification centers rather than 30,000 design changes

June 15 - 1st B-29 mission from China - 47 of 92 return - map

June 15 - Saipan

• 3000 U.S. dead, 30,000 Japanese soldiers killed,
• 22,000 civilians suicide
• causes downfall of Tojo; Guam is Nimitz HQ

July 24 - Tinian

• 300 U.S. dead, 6,000 Japanese killed
• 6 runways, 10 lanes wide, 2 mi. long built for B-29

Sept. 19 - Hyde Park agreement after 2nd Quebec

• atomic monopoly, no Bohr or Jeffries

Sept. 26 - Hanford B-pile goes critical

Oct. 12 - 1st B-29 from Kansas lands on Saipan

Nov. 24 - first B-29 raid on Tokyo aircraft plant

• from Tinian - Gen. Hansell continued raids

Resources:

• additional pictures on 1 2 3 4
• Carlsbad NM Transuranic Waste Dump Opens from AP and NYT March 26, 1999
• Bombing of Hiroshima index from Yahoo
• Leo Szilard home page with links to other atomic bomb pages
• Trinity Atomic Test Site and HEW Archive (U.S.)
• Hanford
• Los Alamos
• Enola Gay Perspectives on the controversy created by the Smithsonian's exhibit
• Fifty Years from Trinity special supplement from Seattle Times
• The man who dropped the bomb. Chicago Tribune's Bob Greene talks to Paul Tibbets, 83, the pilot of the Enola Gay.Here are his columns on Tibbets' recollections.
• Pictures of Albert Einstein from Joachim Reinhardt
• Keegan, John. The Second World War. New York: Penguin, 1989.
• Hales, Peter B. Atomic Spaces: Living on the Manhattan Project. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997. 447 p.: ill., maps ; 26 cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. [381]-428) and index. SUBJECT Manhattan Project (U.S.) -- History. United States. Army. Corps of Engineers. Manhattan District -- History. Atomic bomb -- United States -- History. S&E Stacks QC773.3.U5 H35 1997
• Hein, Laura and Mark Selden, editors. Living with the Bomb: American and Japanese cultural conflicts in the Nuclear Age. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1997. 300 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. SUBJECT World War, 1939-1945 -- Japan. Hiroshima-shi (Japan) -- History -- Bombardment, 1945. Nagasaki-shi (Japan) -- History -- Bombardment, 1945. Japan -- History -- 1945- United States -- History -- 1945- SSH Stacks D767.25.H6 L48 1997. This book argues that the Japanese and American governments influenced by powerful groups, such as U.S. veterans in the Enola Gay exhibit controversy, and the censorship of context in the Japanese Peace Memorial Museum, have suppressed public debate of the bombings; the book gives much attention to the accounts of survivors.
• Vander Meulen, Jacob A. Building the B-29. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995. 104 p.: ill.; 20 x 24 cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. 101-104) SUBJECT B-29 bomber -- Design and construction -- History. World war, 1939-1945 -- Influence. Aircraft industry -- Military aspects -- United States -- History. UGL Stacks SSH Flr 1 TL685.3 .V27 1995
• Albright, Joseph. Bombshell: the secret story of America's unknown atomic spy conspiracy. New York: Times Books, 1997. 399 p.: ill.; 24 cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. [297]-366) and index. SUBJECT Manhattan Project (U.S.) Espionage -- United States -- History -- 20th century. Spies -- United States. Venona. SDSU 5th Floor Books UB271.R9 A48 1997
• Garber, Marjorie and Rebecca L. Walkowitz, eds. Secret Agents: the Rosenberg case, McCarthyism, and Fifties America. New York: Routledge, 1995. 309 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. SUBJECT Rosenberg, Ethel, 1915-1953. Rosenberg, Julius, 1918-1953. McCarthy, Joseph, 1908-1957. Communists -- United States -- Biography. Spies -- United States -- Biography. Trials (Espionage) -- United States. CL Book Stacks 364.131 R813s 1995. This book is a collection of essays that try to argue that the Rosenbergs were framed, despite the strong case by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton in The Rosenberg Files (1983) that they were guilty. One good essay in the collection is Robert Proctor on unranium miners' health.