This Firecracker Didn't Fizzle!

[HiDesertHal]

This is an accurate, detailed scale drawing of "Little Boy", the Atomic Bomb that destroyed Hiroshima on Augst 6, 1945, releasing 15,000 tons of TNT equivalent energy.

Three days later another A-Bomb, called "Fat Man" destroyed Nagasaki.

Five days later, Japan surrendered to the American forces, ending World War 2. Formal Surrender ceremonies took place on September 2, aboard the Battleship Missouri.

The Hiroshima bomb used Uranium, but it was very inefficient, as only about 2% of the Uranium fissioned to produce energy.

Fat Man used Plutonium, with a completely different method of detonation which wasted no fissionable material. It released 21,000 tons of TNT

equivalent energy but did not destroy as much of Nagasaki as Little Boy did of Hiroshima, because of the shadowing effect of hilly terrain in Nagasaki.

I've seen many movies and read many books about the Manhattan Project and the development of Nuclear Bombs, and I can explain the purpose of every component in the drawing below.

I personally find this subject a fascinating branch of Physics.

HiDesertHal

 

[Pappy]

My uncle tried to enlist as all his buddies were leaving to go fight in the war. He was turned down because of a heart murmur. He found out about a job in Niagara Falls for a chemical company. He worked there under the pretense that materials were part of a new project. He didn't know it was a part of the Manhatten project until a couple years later when he received a letter thanking him for his participation in this program.

 

[HiDesertHal]

That's right, Pappy...even plant managers who produced sensitive materials were sworn to secrecy and didn't know what they were producing or for what purpose.

The girls who worked the control panels for the giant Calutrons at Oak Ridge had no idea of the effect of the dials they were turning.

At another plant, employees joked that they were producing the front ends of Horses to be shipped to Washington for assembly.

Even VP Truman wasn't told what the Manhattan Project was about until after FDR died!

Intriguing reading!

HDH