The Girls of Atomic City (34 page)

One down, One to go now,

Give it all we’ve got. Stay on the job, finish the job.

Another, more emotionally jarring reminder that “it’s not over until it’s over” was captured in an image depicting soldiers under heavy enemy fire. Two lay on the ground, as a third looked up at a dark sky peppered by mortar and artillery spray. The caption read:
Whose son will die in the last minute of war? Minutes Count!

Sixteen days after victory in Europe was declared, Tokyo was hit hard again. The bombing runs back in early March—Operation Meetinghouse—had made a terrifying impression. Before the sun rose in the east on the morning of March 10, 1945, the skies over Tokyo had filled with 279 B-29s. By the time the incendiary attack had finished, more than 267,000 buildings had been destroyed, roughly equal to about one-fourth of the entire city. The bombing left more than 83,000 people dead, many more according to some estimates, and scores were homeless and injured. The attack had resulted in the single highest death total of any individual day of action thus far in the war. Now, in May, the B-29 payloads skirted the urban and industrial areas near the Imperial Palace.

A massive modern marvel, the B-29 Superfortress was the flying powerhouse of World War II and the Pacific Campaign. Remote-controlled gun turrets. A pressurized cabin. More than half a million dollars, each traveling 350 mph at 40,000 feet. With the Mariana Islands now in United States control, the small spits of land in the Pacific served as an ideal air base to launch repeated attacks on Japan, and the Project had begun work of its own on the island of Tinian in February. The B-29 had already expanded beyond its originally intended purpose to conduct daylight bombings at high altitudes to include low-altitude runs at night. This go-to bomber of the war would now be adapted for yet another unique mission.

For the Project, VE Day raised new questions. The General listened intently to Under Secretary of War Patterson’s inquiry. How far off was the end of the war? Did the victory in Europe mean that plans for using the Gadget on Japan might change?

Why should it?
the General thought.

Had Germany’s surrender caused Japan to retrench, to lighten her attacks on Americans? No, it had not. He remembered the Secretary saying that the reason for the Project was to end the war, and to do so “more quickly than otherwise would be the case and thus to save American lives.” As far as the General was concerned, the Gadget was to be used against enemies, and Japan was still conducting herself as one.

A report from the Interim Committee’s May 31 meeting made its way to Truman a week later containing recommended uses of the Gadget, the power it relied upon, and future exchange of the research that made it tick. This was followed by the formation of another committee at the Met Lab, among its members Leo Szilard, Glenn Seaborg, and its chairman and namesake, James Franck. The Franck report disagreed with the Interim Committee regarding use of the Gadget—it suggested a demonstration of the Gadget’s power first—but the Scientific Panel of the Interim Committee overrode them, stating they saw “no acceptable alternative to direct military use.”

For himself, the General had no doubts about what was to be done with the Gadget. A decision was coming, true, and not one that would be made solely by the General and the Secretary. High-level briefings and meetings would be conducted among themselves, within their offices in Washington and with colleagues across the country and across the pond.

But as for the final call, the buck stopped—as the sign on his desk in the Oval Office read—with President Truman.

CHAPTER 12

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Sand Jumps in the Desert, July 1945

She packed the husband’s suitcase and told him goodbye without knowing where he was going. She expected to be asked to leave the room after dinner so that her husband and his guest could talk about their secret. She got used to the left-out feeling but sometimes she wondered sadly whether she would ever be in her husband [sic] confidence again.

—Vi Warren,
Oak Ridge Journal

July 17, 1945: On his way back to Washington, the General sat next to several scientists. They had been in each other’s company for several days now. He looked at them. They appeared exhausted and still markedly upset by what they had witnessed in the last 24 hours.

The General arrived in the capital around noon, his work far from over. He had more reports to both write and code before sending them to the Secretary and President Truman, both of whom needed more detail about what had just happened in the desert beyond the cryptic and brief summation that he had sent off immediately following the event. The General also had an appointment to keep with photographer Ed Westcott, who was already seated outside the General’s office, waiting patiently, as he had been for many hours.

Ed Westcott’s journey had been an unexpected one. The instructions were simple but vague:
Take a train to Washington.

Details were stranger than usual. The train would come late at night. He should wait at the Elza Gate railroad overpass, a place where, to his extensive knowledge of CEW, no passenger trains traveled.
There was no indication beyond the tracks themselves that a train might pass. But the Photographer did as he was instructed.

Midnight approached. Westcott stood waiting alone in the dark, cameras and gear in tow. Sure enough, the slightest tremors began quaking the ground beneath his feet. Out of the darkness a glimmer appeared, growing larger as the locomotive’s headlamp came into full view. The train slowed and came to a full stop for him and him alone. A door flew open and a set of stairs dropped from the car. Westcott boarded and the train pulled away into the night.

After arriving early the next morning in Washington, DC, Westcott was taken to the General’s office in what was then the War Department Building (now the State Department building). Rooms 5120 and 5121 were the General’s original offices there, though he had taken over some more space as the Project had grown. When Westcott arrived, he learned the General was not available and was given no other information. So the Photographer sat down and waited.

And waited.

Hours passed, lunch came and went. Finally, late in the afternoon, the General arrived. This was not the first time Westcott had seen him. For nearly three years now, Westcott had documented the life of the Clinton Engineer Works, from plants to dorms, strident search-lights shining from the watchtowers to twinkly lights hanging over the tennis court dances. The General had made plenty of appearances at CEW. But the normally buttoned-down, well-groomed General did not look like his usual spit-shined self. He looked tired more than anything, and badly in need of a shave. The General greeted the Photographer politely but immediately excused himself.

Westcott waited again, assuming the General wanted to freshen up before taking photos. This would be no run-of-the-mill portrait session, not after what had just transpired in the blinding dark morning of the New Mexico desert.

★ ★ ★

The morning of July 16, after roughly 25 miles of jostling around on the back of her friend’s motorbike, Joan had finally arrived at the crest of the small hill. Others had had the same idea, but whispers
and darkness concealed those who had successfully eluded the guards at checkpoints surrounding the test site. At least for the time being.

Young graduate students like 22-year-old Joan Hinton had not been invited to the secretive test, but they knew it was happening. Site Y was small, the confines of the labs smaller still. Word spread quickly and easily.

The athletic and attractive blond woman had been working in Los Alamos, New Mexico, since the previous year, fresh from her doctorate work at the University of Wisconsin. She worked with Fermi’s group on reactors, control rods, and more. There weren’t many women in the labs, but Joan found enough camaraderie among the scientists. She played in a quartet with Hungarian theoretical physicist Edward Teller and Lise Meitner’s nephew, Otto Frisch. The Italian Navigator was always organizing outings, sometimes hiking and, her personal favorite, skiing. (The shop where they fashioned their reactor components was also handy for sharpening skis.) Joan had qualified for the 1940 Olympics, but they were canceled due to the war. Now here she was in the desolate New Mexican desert 250 miles south of Los Alamos. And, along with the other uninvited spectators who had evaded security and snuck out to witness the test, she anticipated a countdown she could not necessarily hear but knew was coming.

★ ★ ★

Elizabeth Graves was with her husband, Al, in Cabin 4 of the less-than-swanky Miller’s Tourist Court in Carrizozo, New Mexico. Their instruments were laid out on the bed. Seismograph. Shortwave radio. Generator. Everything was at the ready. The Geiger counter sat in the window, as if it, too, were waiting for a signal from the desert.

Both Graveses worked at Site Y. Elizabeth—Diz, as she was better known—had worked at the Met Lab in Chicago. Before accepting a position at Site Y, Al had demanded that Diz be hired on as well. She had been working, among other things, on neutron-reflecting surfaces that would surround the core of the Gadget, swaddling it in material that wouldn’t absorb neutrons but rather keep them in motion, help the reactions along.

Diz knew her husband was worried, as much about her condition as the test that was about to happen. Seven-months pregnant was far enough along for them to be concerned about any number of things, among them radiation. They opted to measure the fallout 40 miles away from the test site. But Diz was not one to be easily rattled. In mere months, she would be seen standing in her lab, intently focused on her neutron scattering, all the while timing her contractions.

Now, along with everyone else, they waited.

★ ★ ★

The original idea had been to place the Test Gadget inside a specially constructed, 10-foot-by-25-foot steel container nicknamed Jumbo. The General and the team believed it would be best not to scatter the remnants of the test, in order to prevent later health hazards in the area. They also hoped to be able to recapture some or all of the 49 that was serving as fuel for this, the implosion version of the Gadget.

But that was last year, when they first began planning the test. Now the team of scientists at Site Y and the General were optimistic the test would produce a substantial outcome. Jumbo would likely cause more problems, possibly sending shards of steel airborne for miles. Instead, the Test Gadget was suspended from a tower 100 feet high. The test site, Alamogordo, had been selected for its size—about 432 square miles—and its remoteness, as well as its existing designation as a military base, which made securing the area all the easier.

The Scientist was concerned about the weather. The night of the General’s arrival, there was gusty wind and some rain. Not ideal. Rain would cause the majority of the fallout to drop in a concentrated area, rather than dissipate. Heavy rainfall might affect electrical components. Wind direction needed to head away from populated areas. The observation planes needed to be able to see. This test was their only chance to visually assess the size and reach of the implosion Gadget.

For everyone, excitement was tinged with a bit of trepidation and a touch of dark humor. Dollar bets had been placed as to the resulting size of the blast, and Fermi took side bets as to whether or not the test would wipe New Mexico off the map. The General spoke with the
Scientist. A delay would cause problems, especially with President Truman at the Potsdam Conference in Berlin that very moment. What happened here would impact his discussions with British prime minister Winston Churchill and Soviet premier Joseph Stalin.

The goal was to perform the test at 4
AM
the morning of July 16: early enough so that most people in the surrounding areas would still be sleeping and dark enough for the photographic needs. The exceptionally well-read Scientist later said he supposed he named the test Trinity because at the time he was thinking about a poem by John Donne entitled, “Batter my heart, three-person’d God,” from the sixteenth-century British metaphysical poet’s
Holy Sonnets
, in which the narrator entreats God to dominate him. The “three-person’d God” represents the Trinity, but later biographers would point out that the Scientist’s study of Hinduism may have also played a part, as the Hindu trinity is comprised of Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer.

Everyone knew the drill: Lie down, feet toward the blast, head away, and cover your eyes. There were three observation camps, each roughly 10,000 yards from the tower. The officially invited crowd included scientists and other special guests—Monsanto’s Charles Thomas was there, as was a man named Klaus Fuchs, a physicist then known by the name “Rest” to the Soviets. In 1950, he would be revealed as a Soviet agent and atomic spy.

No one was supposed to look directly at the flash. Once it had passed, you could watch, but only through the special welder’s-style glasses supplied. The test was postponed briefly because weather wasn’t cooperating. Then, at 5:10
AM
the countdown began.

The Project was using the same frequency as radio station KCBA out of Delano, California. At that moment, the station was broadcasting melodious strains of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which intermingled with the voice of physicist Sam Allison as he counted down the final moments to the test.

The General got in position and waited. What would he do, he wondered, if once the countdown ended,
nothing happened
?