Countdown To Zero: A Historical Perspective Of The Atomic Bombs Impact On Humanity

maxine said:
May I put a smile amid all this sorrow? It does not relate to the actual tests but is touching. There is a book - Operation Crossroads, Lest We Forget, written by William L McGee with his wife Sandra V McGee. The authors humanize the story with a few letters from sailors family back home. Since I do not have permission to quote the book verbatim, I'll have to tell it in my own words. I so enjoyed it.

A sailor wrote a letter to his mother. He told her he had joined the Navy because he so admired how clean they keep the decks. One day he finally learned who keeps those decks clean.

Wish I had a Smiley. Maxine
Click to expand...

Baker Explosion.jpg

Operation_Crossroads_Baker_(wide).jpg

Crossroads ABLE shot.jpg

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www.williammcgeebooks.com/operation-crossroads-1946/

www.nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Crossrd.html

www.dtra.mil/Portals/61/Documents/NTPR/2-Hist_Rpt_Atm/1946_DNA_6032F.pdf

www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1945-present/crossroads.htm

www.atomicheritage.org/history/operation-crossroads

www.archive.org/details/gov.ntis.ava13712vnb1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_testing_at_Bikini_Atoll

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Crossroads

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Crossroads_baker_explosion.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Operation_Crossroads_Baker_(wide).jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Ships_involved_in_Operation_Crossroads

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USS_Nevada_(BB-36)_Operation_Crossroads_Target_Ship.jpg





 

I wonder if kids, today, fear the "bomb" as much as we, Boomers, do. Maybe they fear nuclear power plants more than bombs-Chernobyl. Three Mile Island, the Japanese nuke plants.
One thing fascinates me about the "Manhattan Project" was the supposed "secrecy". Everybody knew we were trying to get a nuke, during WWII. You can't have tens of thousands of employees, and not have it leak out. Some historians believe Stalin learned of the test results before Truman did. Truman, himself, wrote that Stalin seemed to know what Truman meant when he hinted about the bomb. And there is evidence the Japanese knew we had developed one working bomb. Come on, you can't explode a nuclear bomb in the middle of New Mexico, and not have anybody notice it.
Also, in US Navy boot camp, in 1968, we saw films about using gun fired nukes. The idea was to shoot a nuke, like regular armillary, at a target. the target would be obliterated, and you'd move to the target, set up and nuke the next target. No more ground troops. Looking back, that was in 1968, and they didn't fully understand the effects of radiation.
 
When I was 7 years old the air raid sirens would go off and we had to follow procedural rules including hiding under our desks. That was my introduction to " A bomb could kill you at any moment" FEAR. And it could wipe out an entire city like SF. This plague of Nuclear War jump started an age of Anxiety that has now reached epidemic proportions.
 


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