Vintage Pics of the Original Atom Bomb

http://www.alternatewars.com/Bomb_Loading/Bomb_Guide.htm

lots of interesting pics

Very cool. There was a local man onboard one of the accompanying planes for the Nagasaki drop. Unfortunately I only found out about this recently, after he had passed.

http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/atomic/hiroshim/laurenc1.html

Very interesting! Can you believe we did all that with such old technology? Doesn't it seem like human kind would have had smart phones 70 years before splitting the atom and not the other way around?

Nukes are much simpler than a smartphone.

Really.

Streetwiseguy wrote: Nukes are much simpler than a smartphone. Really.

That's for sure- Little boy is basically a cannon where a sub critical slug was fired into another sub critical slug, and the compression of the colission started the nuclear explosion.

Fat Boy was more complex, since it required very precice detonation of the explosives that then compressed the sub-critical slug into a critical one. Lots of reseach came out of it- including some very important safety items for commercial use of explosives.

The basic uses of nuclear material to just make heat, which then can be used to make electricity, is really simple- put two radioactive materials to gether in high enough concentrations, and it will sustain a nuclear reaction enough to just generate heat.

The ENIAC- the first electronic computer- was first run in 1946, the artificial nuclear reactor was in 1942 (Chicago Pile-1), and the first town that was powered by nuclear power was 1955 (Arco Idaho).

It's pretty interesting, that's for sure. If you are even in SE Idaho, go visit EBR-I. It's a good tourist stop on the way to Craters of the Moon.

Those are great, I love it when photos of this stuff and other historic relevance surfaces.

You can still see the airbase/loading structure on tinian via Google maps.

That and the Indianapolis ferried one of the bombs to Tinian on its last voyage.

Very interesting pictures. To bad we dropped those bombs. The war was over/ending and Japan wanted to surrender. It is a myth that we saved lives by dropping them.

In reply to T.J.: Linky? Backup info?

T.J. wrote: Very interesting pictures. To bad we dropped those bombs. The war was over/ending and Japan wanted to surrender. It is a myth that we saved lives by dropping them.

Sorry, but I don't buy into that.

yeah, I'd like you to try to back that up … every article I've ever read on this says that the Japanese would have fought "to the last person" axe handles and pitchforks … and that the A bomb destroyed, not only their cities, but their actual will to fight (not knowing that those 2 bombs were the only ones we had

I know there's some debate over the issue...maybe the Japanese were discussing surrender among themselves, but I think the US made the right decision with the information they had - which was that Japan would never surrender and would fight to the last person. Japan was given the opportunity to surrender on the US' terms after the first bomb dropped and didn't take it.

T.J. wrote: Very interesting pictures. To bad we dropped those bombs. The war was over/ending and Japan wanted to surrender. It is a myth that we saved lives by dropping them.

This might just be the most insane thing I've heard on here in awhile. While they caused long term suffering that wasn't expected, they did indeed prevent us from having to invade the mainland. The prospect of 1 plane = 1 city was indeed too much for them.

They still had a very sizable army at the end of the war.

In reply to GameboyRMH:

They couldn't actually comprehend what had happened after Hiroshima, and even after Nagasaki. Some favored surrender, but even more were still hell bent on defending against an invasion. IIRC, it ended up being a change to the "Unconditional Surrender" to allow the condition that the emperor would retain his standing that finally stopped it.

In reply to T.J.:

You offered this little nugget when commenting on a different subject:

T.J. said: I will not pretend to be an expert on the Ukraine and the events that are going on over there, but I don't trust a single thing the government tells me.

I think its' wise to have doubts about government declarations, but that doesn't mean contrary claims should be taken as gospel.

I've read various things that argue that the main reason for dropping the two bombs was the first step in the cold war. That is, Truman knew that Japan would be defeated in short order and was focusing on the coming conflict with the Soviet Union, and demonstrating the power of the atomic bomb and the US will to use it to Stalin was an important deterrent. Supposedly the same surrender conditions (Emperor keeps his ceremonial position) had been offered and rejected the week before.

Was it effective? Perhaps. As I understand it, the only thing that kept Stalin from running tanks across West Berlin during the blockade were the B-29s ready to head to Moscow if necessary.

crankwalk wrote: Very interesting! Can you believe we did all that with such old technology? Doesn't it seem like human kind would have had smart phones 70 years before splitting the atom and not the other way around?

I don't think you understand how astounding smartphones are. As noted, atom bombs can be pretty simple.

If you want to be impressed with what can be done with older tech, check out the automating of Enigma codebreaking in the war. Heck, start with cracking the Enigma in the first place. There were just as many smart people in WWII as there are now, and they were highly motivated.

My grandad was slated to march in operation coronet. No bomb, we'd have had to invade to end the war. There were some very small out-of-power voices, including the emperor, that wanted to end it but the people in charge of Japan had absolutely no interest in that and to argue otherwise is to indulge in denial to fit an agenda. Casualties on our side alone were projected to be in the 7 figure range. The odds of him surviving were minimal, and then I wouldn't be here to listen to foolish intarwebz argument as to how we shouldn't have used them to end the war. Carry on.

In reply to codrus:

If that were the case we'd have given Patton more fuel/ammo and kept fighting in Europe.

The only proof I could find of the conditional surrender is that it took nearly a week to translate/decide/work out details/announce. All in which, there was an attempted coup of hardliners during that time and further non-nuclear bombings during that time(one of which allegedly helped stop the coup)

If you need any proof as to Japanese willingness to keep fighting just look at Okinawa.

There are numerous possible justifications for using the bomb. As with most things, it's likely a combination of them. Some that have not been mentioned:

• Simple revenge: Payback for Pearl Harbor and some of the other atrocities by the Japanese.

• Economics and momentum: The bomb program was RIDICULOUSLY expensive. There was a huge amount of momentum in the program. It can be very hard to stop that sort of momentum.

• Testing: A bit sick, but it was the best way to see what would happen. That is why they picked Hiroshima. It was untouched, and was a perfect laboratory for viewing the effects. They also had NO idea what the long term (genetic etc.) effects of the radiation would be. You can clearly see this by the monster movies of the time (Radiation mutations etc.). They found no real effects BTW.

Appleseed wrote: If you need any proof as to Japanese willingness to keep fighting just look at Okinawa.

Or The Philippines 25-years after the war ended!

I've had the priviledge of speaking with several Bataan survivors and dozens of Pacific theater vets who all agree that the bombs were the best option at the time and to try and second guess history is bull E36 M3.

That said from what I've heard the reson Nagasaki and Hiroshima were chosen as targets is that they were the largest intact cities left after we had firebombed everything else in Japan to a cinder. Shock and Awe before it was a term....

aircooled wrote: There are numerous possible justifications for using the bomb. As with most things, it's likely a combination of them. Some that have not been mentioned: - Simple revenge: Payback for Pearl Harbor and some of the other atrocities by the Japanese. - Economics and momentum: The bomb program was RIDICULOUSLY expensive. There was a huge amount of momentum in the program. It can be very hard to stop that sort of momentum. - Testing: A bit sick, but it was the best way to see what would happen. That is why they picked Hiroshima. It was untouched, and was a perfect laboratory for viewing the effects. They also had NO idea what the long term (genetic etc.) effects of the radiation would be. You can clearly see this by the monster movies of the time (Radiation mutations etc.). They found no real effects BTW.

All good points and taken with a 1940's perspective. T.J.'s description is based on something far newer and with 20/20 hindsight.

For a bit of trivia, there has been speculation that residual radiation from the tests contributed to the premature deaths of actors and crew members after filming the 1950's movie "The Conqueror". That might be as accurate as the theories breeding in the flight 370 thread.

KyAllroad wrote: I've had the priviledge of speaking with several Bataan survivors and dozens of Pacific theater vets who all agree that the bombs were the best option at the time and to try and second guess history is bull E36 M3. That said from what I've heard the reson Nagasaki and Hiroshima were chosen as targets is that they were the largest intact cities left after we had firebombed everything else in Japan to a cinder. Shock and Awe before it was a term....

Correct. And I believe far more poeple died in our firebombing than from the nukes.