The Manhattan Project: Making The Atomic Bomb [UPDATED]
As the United States began its island-hopping campaign in the Pacific, the Army Corps of Engineers took over the effort to produce atomic weaponry on the Home Front. On August 13, 1942, the Army Corps created the Manhattan Engineer District, named for the location of its offices in New York City. The following month, on September 17, Colonel Leslie R. Groves was appointed to head the project and received a promotion to Brigadier General. Within two days of his appointment, Groves made quick decisions to move the project forward, selecting three primary sites for the manufacture of an atomic bomb.
The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb
The project led to the development of two types of atomic bombs, both developed concurrently, during the war: a relatively simple gun-type fission weapon and a more complex implosion-type nuclear weapon. The Thin Man gun-type design proved impractical to use with plutonium, so a simpler gun-type called Little Boy was developed that used uranium-235, an isotope that makes up only 0.7 percent of natural uranium. Because it is chemically identical to the most common isotope, uranium-238, and has almost the same mass, separating the two proved difficult. Three methods were employed for uranium enrichment: electromagnetic, gaseous and thermal. Scientists conducted most of this work at the Clinton Engineer Works at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
The first nuclear device ever detonated was an implosion-type bomb during the Trinity test, conducted at New Mexico's Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range on 16 July 1945. Little Boy and Fat Man bombs were used a month later in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, with Manhattan Project personnel serving as bomb assembly technicians and weaponeers on the attack aircraft. In the immediate postwar years, the Manhattan Project conducted weapons testing at Bikini Atoll as part of Operation Crossroads, developed new weapons, promoted the development of the network of national laboratories, supported medical research into radiology and laid the foundations for the nuclear navy. It maintained control over American atomic weapons research and production until the formation of the United States Atomic Energy Commission in January 1947.
As part of the scientific exchange, the MAUD Committee's findings were conveyed to the United States. One of its members, the Australian physicist Mark Oliphant, flew to the United States in late August 1941 and discovered that data provided by the MAUD Committee had not reached key American physicists. Oliphant then set out to find out why the committee's findings were apparently being ignored. He met with the Uranium Committee and visited Berkeley, California, where he spoke persuasively to Ernest O. Lawrence. Lawrence was sufficiently impressed to commence his own research into uranium. He in turn spoke to James B. Conant, Arthur H. Compton and George B. Pegram. Oliphant's mission was therefore a success; key American physicists were now aware of the potential power of an atomic bomb.[18][19]
The British and Americans exchanged nuclear information but did not initially combine their efforts. Britain rebuffed attempts by Bush and Conant in 1941 to strengthen cooperation with its own project, codenamed Tube Alloys, because it was reluctant to share its technological lead and help the United States develop its own atomic bomb.[61] An American scientist who brought a personal letter from Roosevelt to Churchill offering to pay for all research and development in an Anglo-American project was poorly treated, and Churchill did not reply to the letter. The United States as a result decided as early as April 1942 that if its offer was rejected, they should proceed alone.[62] The British, who had made significant contributions early in the war, did not have the resources to carry through such a research program while fighting for their survival. As a result, Tube Alloys soon fell behind its American counterpart.[63] and on 30 July 1942, Sir John Anderson, the minister responsible for Tube Alloys, advised Churchill that: "We must face the fact that ... [our] pioneering work ... is a dwindling asset and that, unless we capitalise it quickly, we shall be outstripped. We now have a real contribution to make to a 'merger.' Soon we shall have little or none."[64] That month Churchill and Roosevelt made an informal, unwritten agreement for atomic collaboration.[65]
Groves appreciated the early British atomic research and the British scientists' contributions to the Manhattan Project, but stated that the United States would have succeeded without them.[68] He also said that Churchill was "the best friend the atomic bomb project had [as] he kept Roosevelt's interest up ... He just stirred him up all the time by telling him how important he thought the project was."[58]
The key raw material for the project was uranium, which was used as fuel for the reactors, as feed that was transformed into plutonium, and, in its enriched form, in the atomic bomb itself. There were four known major deposits of uranium in 1940: in Colorado, in northern Canada, in Joachimsthal in Czechoslovakia, and in the Belgian Congo.[128] All but Joachimstal were in Allied hands. A November 1942 survey determined that sufficient quantities of uranium were available to satisfy the project's requirements.[129] Nichols arranged with the State Department for export controls to be placed on uranium oxide and negotiated for the purchase of 1,200 short tons (1,100 t) of uranium ore from the Belgian Congo that was being stored in a warehouse on Staten Island and the remaining stocks of mined ore stored in the Congo. He negotiated with Eldorado Gold Mines for the purchase of ore from its refinery in Port Hope, Ontario, and its shipment in 100-ton lots. The Canadian government subsequently bought up the company's stock until it acquired a controlling interest.[130]
Voluntary censorship of atomic information began before the Manhattan Project. After the start of the European war in 1939 American scientists began avoiding publishing military-related research, and in 1940 scientific journals began asking the National Academy of Sciences to clear articles. William L. Laurence of The New York Times, who wrote an article on atomic fission in The Saturday Evening Post of 7 September 1940, later learned that government officials asked librarians nationwide in 1943 to withdraw the issue.[259] The Soviets noticed the silence, however. In April 1942 nuclear physicist Georgy Flyorov wrote to Josef Stalin on the absence of articles on nuclear fission in American journals; this resulted in the Soviet Union establishing its own atomic bomb project.[260]
The most successful Soviet spy was Klaus Fuchs, a member of the British Mission who played an important part at Los Alamos.[267] The 1950 revelation of his espionage activities damaged the United States' nuclear cooperation with Britain and Canada.[268] Subsequently, other instances of espionage were uncovered, leading to the arrest of Harry Gold, David Greenglass, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.[269] Other spies like George Koval and Theodore Hall remained unknown for decades.[270] The value of the espionage is difficult to quantify, as the principal constraint on the Soviet atomic bomb project was a shortage of uranium ore. The consensus is that espionage saved the Soviets one or two years of effort.[271]
In addition to developing the atomic bomb, the Manhattan Project was charged with gathering intelligence on the German nuclear energy project. It was believed that the Japanese nuclear weapons program was not far advanced because Japan had little access to uranium ore, but it was initially feared that Germany was very close to developing its own weapons. At the instigation of the Manhattan Project, a bombing and sabotage campaign was carried out against heavy water plants in German-occupied Norway.[272] A small mission was created, jointly staffed by the Office of Naval Intelligence, OSRD, the Manhattan Project, and Army Intelligence (G-2), to investigate enemy scientific developments. It was not restricted to those involving nuclear weapons.[273] The Chief of Army Intelligence, Major General George V. Strong, appointed Boris Pash to command the unit,[274] which was codenamed "Alsos", a Greek word meaning "grove".[275]
Starting in November 1943, the Army Air Forces Materiel Command at Wright Field, Ohio, began Silverplate, the codename modification of B-29s to carry the bombs. Test drops were carried out at Muroc Army Air Field, California, and the Naval Ordnance Test Station at Inyokern, California.[285] Groves met with the Chief of United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), General Henry H. Arnold, in March 1944 to discuss the delivery of the finished bombs to their targets.[286] The only Allied aircraft capable of carrying the 17-foot (5.2 m) long Thin Man or the 59-inch (150 cm) wide Fat Man was the British Avro Lancaster, but using a British aircraft would have caused difficulties with maintenance.[287] Groves hoped that the American Boeing B-29 Superfortress could be modified to carry Thin Man by joining its two bomb bays together.[287] Arnold promised that no effort would be spared to modify B-29s to do the job, and designated Major General Oliver P. Echols as the USAAF liaison to the Manhattan Project. In turn, Echols named Colonel Roscoe C. Wilson as his alternate, and Wilson became Manhattan Project's main USAAF contact.[286] President Roosevelt instructed Groves that if the atomic bombs were ready before the war with Germany ended, he should be ready to drop them on Germany.[288]
Most of the components for Little Boy left San Francisco on the cruiser USS Indianapolis on 16 July and arrived on Tinian on 26 July. Four days later the ship was sunk by a Japanese submarine. The remaining components, which included six uranium-235 rings, were delivered by three C-54 Skymasters of the 509th Group's 320th Troop Carrier Squadron.[292] Two Fat Man assemblies travelled to Tinian in specially modified 509th Composite Group B-29s. The first plutonium core went in a special C-54.[293] In late April, a joint targeting committee of the Manhattan District and USAAF was established to determine which cities in Japan should be targets, and recommended Kokura, Hiroshima, Niigata, and Kyoto. At this point, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson intervened, announcing that he would be making the targeting decision, and that he would not authorize the bombing of Kyoto on the grounds of its historical and religious significance. Groves therefore asked Arnold to remove Kyoto not just from the list of nuclear targets, but from targets for conventional bombing as well.[294] One of Kyoto's substitutes was Nagasaki.[295] 041b061a72