Read Ebook: Trinity Site: 1945-1995. A National Historic Landmark White Sands Missile Range New Mexico by White Sands Missile Range N M Public Affairs Office

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 102 lines and 7782 words, and 3 pages

At the McDonald ranch house the master bedroom had been turned into a clean room for the assembly of the bomb core. According to Robert Bacher, a member of the assembly team, they tried to use only tools and materials from a special kit. Several of these kits existed and some were already on their way to Tinian, the island in the Pacific which was the base for the bombers. The idea was to test the procedures and tools at Trinity as well as the bomb itself.

At one minute past midnight on Friday, July 13, the explosive assembly left Los Alamos for Trinity Site. Later in the morning, assembly of the plutonium core began. According to Raemer Schreiber, Robert Bacher was the advisor and Marshall Holloway and Philip Morrison had overall responsibility. Louis Slotin, Boyce McDaniel and Cyril Smith were responsible for the mechanical assembly in the ranch house. Later Holloway was responsible for the mechanical assembly at the tower.

In the afternoon of the 13th the core was taken to ground zero for insertion into the bomb mechanism.

The bomb was assembled under the tower on July 13. The plutonium core was inserted into the device with some difficulty. On the first try it stuck. After letting the temperatures of the plutonium and casing equalize the core slid smoothly into place. Once the assembly was complete many of the men took a welcome relief and went swimming in the water tank east of the McDonald ranch house.

The next morning the entire bomb was raised to the top of the 100 foot steel tower and placed in a small shelter. A crew then attached all the detonators and by 5 p.m. it was complete.

The test

Three observation points were established at 10,000 yards from ground zero. These were wooden shelters protected by concrete and earth. The south bunker served as the control center for the test. The automatic firing device was triggered from there as key men such as Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, head of Los Alamos, watched. None of the manned bunkers are left.

Many scientists and support personnel, including Gen. Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, watched the explosion from base camp which was ten miles southwest of ground zero. All the buildings at base camp were removed after the test. Most visiting VIPs watched from Compania Hill, 20 miles northwest of ground zero.

The test was scheduled for 4 a.m. July 16, but rain and lightning early that morning caused it to be postponed. The device could not be exploded under rainy conditions because rain and winds would increase the danger from radioactive fallout and interfere with observation of the test. At 4:45 a.m. the crucial weather report came through announcing calm to light winds with broken clouds for the following two hours.

At 5:10 the countdown started and at 5:29:45 the device exploded successfully. To most observers the brilliance of the light from the explosion--watched through dark glasses--overshadowed the shock wave and sound that arrived later.

Hans Bethe, one of the contributing scientists, wrote "it looked like a giant magnesium flare which kept on for what seemed a whole minute but was actually one or two seconds. The white ball grew and after a few seconds became clouded with dust whipped up by the explosion from the ground and rose and left behind a black trail of dust particles."

Joe McKibben, another scientist, said, "We had a lot of flood lights on for taking movies of the control panel. When the bomb went off, the lights were drowned out by the big light coming in through the open door in the back."

Others were impressed by the heat they immediately felt. Military policeman Davis said, "The heat was like opening up an oven door, even at 10 miles." Dr. Phillip Morrison said, "Suddenly, not only was there a bright light but where we were, 10 miles away, there was the heat of the sun on our faces....Then, only minutes later, the real sun rose and again you felt the same heat to the face from the sunrise. So we saw two sunrises."

After the explosion

Although no information on the test was released until after the atomic bomb was used as a weapon against Japan, people in New Mexico knew something had happened. The shock broke windows 120 miles away and was felt by many at least 160 miles away. Army officials simply stated that a munitions storage area had accidentally exploded at the Alamogordo Bombing Range.

The explosion did not make much of a crater. Most eyewitnesses describe the area as more of a small depression instead of a crater. The heat of the blast did melt the desert sand and turn it into a green glassy substance. It was called Trinitite and can still be seen in the area. At one time Trinitite completely covered the depression made by the explosion. Afterwards the depression was filled and much of the Trinitite was taken away by the Nuclear Energy Commission.

To the west of the monument is a low structure which is protecting an original portion of the crater area. Trinitite is visible through openings in the roof.

It's the Schmidt house

The George McDonald ranch house sits within an 85'x85' low stone wall. The house was built in 1913 by Franz Schmidt, a German immigrant, and an addition was constructed on the north side in the 1930's by the McDonalds. There is a display about the Schmidt family in the house during each open house.

The ranch house is a one-story, 1,750 square-foot building. It is built of adobe which was plastered and painted. An ice house is located on the west side along with an underground cistern which stored rain water running off the roof. At one time the north addition contained a toilet and bathtub which drained into a septic tank northwest of the house.

There is a large, divided water storage tank and a Chicago Aeromotor windmill east of the house. The scientists and support people used the north tank as a swimming pool during the long hot summer of 1945. South of the windmill are the remains of a bunkhouse and a barn which was part garage. Further to the east are corrals and holding pens. The buildings and fixtures east of the house have been stabilized to prevent further deterioration.

The ranch was abandoned in 1942 when the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range took over the land to use in training World War II bombing crews. The house stood empty until the Manhattan Project support personnel arrived in early 1945.

Inside the house the northeast room was designated the assembly room. Work benches and tables were installed. To keep dust and sand out of instruments and tools, the windows were covered with plastic. Tape was used to fasten the edges of the plastic and to seal doors and cracks in the walls.

The explosion, only two miles away, did not significantly damage the house. Most of the windows were blown out, but the main structure was intact. Years of rain water dripping through holes in the roof did much more damage. The barn did not do as well. During the Trinity test the roof was bowed inward and some of the roofing was blown away. The roof has since collapsed.

The house stood empty and deteriorating until 1982 when the U.S. Army stabilized the house to prevent any further damage. Shortly after, the Department of Energy and U.S. Army provided the funds for the National Park Service to completely restore the house. The work was done in 1984. All efforts were directed at making the house appear as it did on July 12, 1945.

Afterwards

The story of what happened at Trinity Site did not come to light until after the second atomic bomb was exploded over Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6. President Truman made the announcement that day. Three days later, August 9, the third atomic bomb devastated the city of Nagasaki, and on August 14 the Japanese surrendered.

Interest in Trinity Site was immediate. In September 1945 press tours to the site started. One of the famous photos of ground zero shows Robert Oppenheimer and General Leslie Groves surrounded by a small group of reporters as they examine one of the footings to the 100 foot tower on which the bomb was placed. That picture was taken Sept. 11. The exposed footing is still visible at ground zero. On Sept. 15-17, George Cremeens, a young radio reporter from KRNT in Des Moines, visited the site with soundman Frank Lagouri. They flew over the crater and interviewed Dr. Kenneth Bainbridge, Trinity test director, and Capt. Howard Bush, base camp commander.

Back in Iowa, Cremeens created four 15-minute reports on his visit which aired Sept. 24, 26, 27 and 29. A 15-minute composite was made and aired on the ABC Radio Network. For his work Cremeens received a local Peabody Award for "Outstanding Reporting and Interpretation of the News."

At first Trinity Site was encircled with a fence and radiation warning signs were posted. The site remained off-limits to military and civilian personnel of the proving ground and closed to the public.

In 1952 the Atomic Energy Commission let a contract to clean up the site. Much of the Trinitite was scraped up and buried. In September 1953 about 650 people attended the first Trinity Site open house. A few years later a small group from Tularosa visited the site on an anniversary of the explosion to conduct a religious service and prayers for peace. Similar visits have been made annually in recent years on the first Saturday in October.

In 1967 the inner oblong fence was added. In 1972 the corridor barbed wire fence which connects the outer fence to the inner one was completed. Jumbo was moved to the parking lot in 1979.

Visits to the site are now made in April and October because it is generally so hot in July on the Jornada del Muerto.

White Sands Missile Range

White Sands Missile Range has developed from a simple desert testing site for the V-2 into one of the most sophisticated test facilities in the world. The mission of White Sands Missile Range begins with a customer--a service developer, or another federal agency, which is ready to find out if engineers and scientists have built something which will perform according to job specifications. It ends when an exhaustive series of tests has been completed and a data report has been delivered to the customer.

Between the beginning and the end of the test program, be it the Army Tactical Missile System or newly designed automobiles, range employees are involved in every operation connected with the customer and his product. The range can and does provide everything from rat traps to telephones, from equipment hoists and flight safety to microsecond timing.

We shake, rattle and roll the product, roast it, freeze it, subject it to nuclear radiation, dip it in salt water and roll it in the mud. We test its paint, bend its frame and find out what effect its propulsion material has on flora and fauna.

In the end, if it's a missile, we fire it, record its performance and bring back the pieces for post mortem examination. All test data is reduced and the customer receives a full report.

For more information on Trinity Site or White Sands Missile Range contact:

Public Affairs Office White Sands Missile Range White Sands Missile Range, N.M. 88002-5047

Reading List

The Day the Sun Rose Twice, by Ferenc Szasz, University of New Mexico Press, 1984.

Trinity, by Kenneth Bainbridge, Los Alamos publication .

The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Richard Rhodes, Simon and Schuster, 1986.

Now It Can Be Told, by General Leslie Groves, Da Capo Press, 1975.

City of Fire: Los Alamos and the Atomic Age, 1943-1945, by James Kunetka, University of New Mexico Press, 1978.

Los Alamos 1943-1945: The Beginning of an Era, Los Alamos Publication .

Day of Trinity, by Lansing Lamont, Atheneum.

Radiological Survey and Evaluation of the Fallout Area from the Trinity Test: Chupadera Mesa and White Sands Missile Range, N. M., Los Alamos publication .

Life Magazine, August 20 and September 24, 1945.

Time Magazine, August 13 and 20, 1945.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet