First Nuclear Bomb, The Manhattan Project

In 1939, the Nazis were rumored to be developing an atomic bomb. The United States initiated its own program under the Army Corps of Engineers in June 1942. America needed to build an atomic weapon before Germany or Japan did. General Leslie R. Groves, Deputy Chief of Construction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was appointed to direct this top-secret project. The Manhattan Project was the project to develop the first nuclear weapon (atomic bomb) during World War II by the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Formally designated as the Manhattan Engineer District (MED), it refers specifically to the period of the project from 1941–1946 under the control of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, under the administration of General Leslie R. Groves. The scientific research was directed by American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.The project succeeded in developing and detonating three nuclear weapons in 1945: a test detonation of a plutonium implosion bomb on July 16 (the Trinity test) near Alamogordo, New Mexico An enriched uranium bomb code-named "Little Boy" on August 6 over Hiroshima, Japan; and a second plutonium bomb, code-named "Fat Man" on August 9 over Nagasaki, Japan. Many people assume that the same holds true for the Manhattan Project, in which thousands of experts gathered in the mountains of New Mexico to make the world’s first atom bomb. Robert S Norris, a historian of the atomic age, wants to shatter that myth. In ‘The Manhattan Project’, published last month, Norris writes about the Manhattan Project’s Manhattan locations. He says the borough had at least 10 sites, all but one still standing. They include warehouses that held uranium, laboratories that split the atom, and the project’s first headquarters — a skyscraper hidden in plain sight right across from City Hall. “It was super secret,” Norris said. “At least 5,000 people were coming and going to work, knowing only enough to get the job done.” Manhattan was central, according to Norris, because it had everything: lots of military units, piers for the import of precious ores, top physicists who had fled Europe and ranks of workers eager to aid the war effort. It even had spies who managed to steal some of the project’s top secrets. “The story is so rich,” Norris enthused. “There’s layer upon layer of good stuff, interesting characters.” Still, more than six decades after the project’s start, the Manhattan side of the atom bomb story seems to be a well-preserved secret. (Norris is also the author of a biography of Gen Leslie R Groves, the project’s military leader.) Norris recently visited Manhattan at the request of ‘The New York Times’ for a daylong tour of the Manhattan Project’s roots. Only one site he visited displayed a public sign noting its role in the epochal events. And most people who encountered his entourage knew little or nothing of the atomic labors in Manhattan. So how did the Manhattan Project get its name, and why was Manhattan chosen as its first headquarters? Norris said the answer lay at our next stop, 270 Broadway. There, at Chambers Street, on the corner, we found a nondescript building overlooking City Hall Park.A month after the first bomb was tested; two nuclear weapons were exploded over Japan, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There were many reasons for this. The official reason is that it would immediately end the war, thus saving the lives of thousands of American servicemen. Immediate deaths from the bomb are estimated to be about 100,000. This figure is astounding. However, it is comparable to the estimated number of casualties that would have resulted from a Allied invasion of the Japanese home islands. However, the choice to drop the bombs on Japan is very controversial and there are many people that feel they were unnecessary, and that Japan would have surrendered anyway.

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