You may have seen some posts on social media about it, on July 16th.
July 16th Marked the 81st. Anniversary of the Trinity Project
Many of you may have seen the Movie Oppenheimer, about the German Scientist who is considered the ‘father’ of the modern atomic bomb. J. Robert Oppenheimer was the lead scientist on the Manhattan Project, which began construction in August of 1942.
But there’s an engineer, who was largely ignored in the movie, who oversaw the construction of the entire Hanford Nuclear Reservation, and without his drive, it would have taken much longer.
Originally, in 1939, President Roosevelt created the Advisory Committee on Uranium, due to rumors and information filtering out of Europe that Germany was working on an atomic weapon. While it was troubled by bad science, lack of resources and designs and the Germans never got close, the mere rumors of such a weapon created a stir high in the US government.
Who Was Tasked With Finding the “Perfect” Location for Manhattan?
A well respected and famous (at the time) Army Corps of Engineer Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves was tasked with finding a location to build an atomic bomb. After countless travels, he found the Columbia Basin. At the time the Tri-Cities was a tiny remote semi-arid desert with abundant water from the Columbia and miles of flat stable rural ground. It was perfect for building the reactors and the bomb.
When the bomb was ready, utilizing plutonium from the Hanford B Reactor, some was taken to Ground Zero, 210 miles from Los Alamos, in the middle of the Jordada del Meurto Desert in New Mexico, known as the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range.
The device, known as The Gadget, was detonated at 5:29:45 AM Mountain Time, and set off the modern nuclear weapons age. Robert Oppenheimer, watching from a distance of ten miles, later admitted in 1965 during a TV interview he thought of the Hindu Proverb that says “Now I am Death, the Destroyer of Worlds…”
This is a still film image from the Trinity Test.
Which Bomb Dropped on Japan was Made at Hanford?
The plutonium from Hanford was used to make the second atomic bomb dropped on Japan, known as Fat Man, it was dropped on August 9th on Nagasaki. Little Boy, bomb #1, was dropped on Hiroshima August 6th 1945.
When Did Leslie Groves Park Open?
It was first built and opened in 1949, and is now a national historical site. Groves died in 1970 at the age of 73, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. It was created to honor his contributions to the modern nuclear age. This video, from Atom Central, contains Trinity Test Footage that was classified until after World War II.
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Gallery Credit: Andrew Lisa