Schiffer Publishing Ltd, 1996. - 236 p.
On 16 July, 1945, an event occurred that changed the world forever. At 5:29 AM Mountain War Time (4:49 AM standard time), on an empty stretch of desert 60 TI.iles from Alamogordo
New Mexico, a gigantic explosion occurred. So powerful was this blast that the earth noticeably shook for 30 miles around. So brilliant was the light, it was visible 200 miles away at Los Alamos. In all a blast equal to 20 thousand tons of TNT. And yet all this destructive power came from a
spherical device about six feet in diameter and weighing only 5 tons. This device was the Gadget, the test device for the Fat Man bomb. Twenty-one days later the Little Boy bomb was dropped
on Hiroshima, Japan. In a few seconds this beautiful city was reduced to ashes and 70,000 of its citizens were dead or dying. Three days later, on 9 August 1945, Nagasaki was destroyed by
the Fat Man at the cost of an additional 35,000 people. These events effectively mark the end of the Second World War, the bloodiest war in human history. They also mark the beginning
of the atomic age that many of us have grown up in. Last year we marked the fiftieth anniversary of the use of these bombs to end that war. This use has become controversial, primarily because most people were not even bo until after the war ended. It is impossible to judge the actions of those involved in these events, however, when the only information you have is your high school history class lecture on the war. The same can be said about the whole history ofU.S. nuclear
weapons. Of the fifty year period between today and the Fat Man, few Americans even know how many nuclear weapons this country has produced or what they were for. Many Americans,
in fact, believe many previous U.S. systems never existed, believing this because of previous
On 16 July, 1945, an event occurred that changed the world forever. At 5:29 AM Mountain War Time (4:49 AM standard time), on an empty stretch of desert 60 TI.iles from Alamogordo
New Mexico, a gigantic explosion occurred. So powerful was this blast that the earth noticeably shook for 30 miles around. So brilliant was the light, it was visible 200 miles away at Los Alamos. In all a blast equal to 20 thousand tons of TNT. And yet all this destructive power came from a
spherical device about six feet in diameter and weighing only 5 tons. This device was the Gadget, the test device for the Fat Man bomb. Twenty-one days later the Little Boy bomb was dropped
on Hiroshima, Japan. In a few seconds this beautiful city was reduced to ashes and 70,000 of its citizens were dead or dying. Three days later, on 9 August 1945, Nagasaki was destroyed by
the Fat Man at the cost of an additional 35,000 people. These events effectively mark the end of the Second World War, the bloodiest war in human history. They also mark the beginning
of the atomic age that many of us have grown up in. Last year we marked the fiftieth anniversary of the use of these bombs to end that war. This use has become controversial, primarily because most people were not even bo until after the war ended. It is impossible to judge the actions of those involved in these events, however, when the only information you have is your high school history class lecture on the war. The same can be said about the whole history ofU.S. nuclear
weapons. Of the fifty year period between today and the Fat Man, few Americans even know how many nuclear weapons this country has produced or what they were for. Many Americans,
in fact, believe many previous U.S. systems never existed, believing this because of previous