BIBLIOGRAPHY
Catone,
Florence; Chemist for Manhattan Project. Interviewed by Andrew Luchsinger &
Daniel Becerra at the Lake County Library on November 10, 2000. Approx. 2:00pm.
Florence was our most personal and
interesting interview of all. She
worked on the production of the atomic bomb back in 1942-1945, and she happened
to work part-time at our county library.
At first she looks like a kind older woman, until she tells you her
story… Florence was in need of work at the time. She was notably good at mathematics and chemistry; this was one
of the main reasons that she was chosen to work on the bomb. She had to work totally covert; not a word
was to be let out about the project.
She would work long hours, 6 days a week and a lot of overtime; she
found it “fascinating”. She developed
ways to test for U-235. The people she
worked with were very friendly and everyone was a good friend with J. Robert
Oppenheimer. She said that she
remembers him for his friendliness and how he laughed and his love for science
fiction. She told us that Oppenheimer
became a very unhappy man after the bomb dropped. Florence’s pioneering work may have been fascinating, but after
she had helped manifest it, she said that she didn’t like it when the bomb was
dropped on Japan. She believes that we should have dropped it on a
less-inhabited area. Thousands of
people in Berkeley also were displeased with their decision to drop the
bomb. We then asked her about her
working environments and she said that the tools that they used were extremely
clean glass. They would blow their own
glass and develop their own glassware.
Florence would sort U-235 from U-238 on plutonium sheets. They would use a chemical to do this, she
said. We asked if she ever had any
accidents in the lab and she told us that they would use bromine acetate to
clean their glassware, and it would make people’s eyes water. Well, once this happened with many students
in one of the rooms and everyone started to cry. She told us that she used to work in Oakridge, Tennessee. There were 45,000 people in Oakridge, but
the post office reported 60,000 people, which means that there were 15,000
people that were unaccounted fore, yet secretly working in Oakridge. She told us that after her years working on the
Manhattan Project, she went to France for a few years, and then she came
back. She never worked in Chemistry or
Mathematics again. She did not want to
be associated with the government. When
it was all over, her family was very proud of her. Overall, Mrs. Catone was not entirely proud of her
accomplishments because of the outcome of the war and what her work was used
for, as did all of the other scientists who worked on the project.
Fujioka,
Etsuko; Atomic Bomb Survivor (Written Composition).
Children of the A-Bomb. New
York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1959. Pgs. 172-175.
This composition was one of four select
compositions out of Dr. Arata Osada’s book that we chose to analyze. An 11th grade girl starts off
with a line that caught our eye: “I think that only the people who
experienced the Bomb can really comprehend that suffering.” A quote like this is what drove us to read
many of these personal encounters because if we can never fully comprehend it,
we can at least get an idea, and that is what these compositions
contribute. This girl was one who was
pinned down in wreckage, and suffered greatly.
She gained many scars from the incident, and other children would often tease
her when she and her family moved to another city. We both find this to be very sad considering there was nothing
that Etsuko could do about it. Although
Nuclear Fission is one of the greatest achievements of mankind, it was also one
of the most horrible, and that is why we find it very important to hear the
actual real-life stories that these victims have to tell.
Kanoh,
Sanae; Atomic Bomb Survivor (Written Composition).
Children of the A-Bomb. New
York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1959. Pgs. 13-15.
Sanae Kanoh wrote this paper in the 5th
grade of her grammar school, and she describes her recollections and feelings
about the crucial moment in history, the bombing of Japan. She remembers the air raid sirens that
would go off almost everyday, and she would hide in her closet periodically. One day she heard the sirens, and then she
instantly heard and saw a big bright explosion. Talking about the explosion she
said, “I almost fainted”. After
recovering from the deafening bang, she noticed that her mother and her
grandmother had both died from collapsing objects. The rest of her family got the ‘radiation sickness’ and have
almost, to this day, not been the same.
She is the only one in her family to have survived without injury, and
she is grateful for it; but she is sad for the rest of her family. This composition is very important to our
full knowledge about what the consequences, and what direct effects nuclear
fission had on the lives of innocent people.
Kawasaki,
Isao; Atomic Bomb Survivor (Written Composition).
Children of the A-Bomb. New
York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1959. Pgs. 59-60.
Isao was in the 6th grade of
his grammar school when he wrote this composition about the bombing of
Hiroshima, Japan. His recollection was
about how his older brother and father had moved to Hiroshima, while he and the
rest of his family stayed in the country.
One day his older brother came to visit, and his mother told him that he
should go back because his father was waiting for him, but the grandmother
encouraged him to stay. The older
brother did go back to Hiroshima that day (August 5th) and the next
day Isao heard the noise. He found out
that day that his brother and his father had both perished. To this day he resents not having his father
alive, and he strives to do the best that he can because he wants his father in
heaven to look down and see a good boy. We found this recollection very sad and
frustrating at the same time. Small
decisions like deciding whether to stay one more day can mean life and death.
But we learned that it wasn’t only the small decisions that led to death, it was
a decision by President Roosevelt to begin the Manhattan Project, and to use
nuclear fission not as a contribution to the world, but as a tragedy. Once again a life is changed.
Nakagawa,
Mr. Yukiharu, Atomic Bomb Survivor.
Interviewed by Mitsuru Ohba at the Information Plaza in Hiroshima on
June 9, 1995.
http://www.csi.ad.jp/ABOMB/Hibakusha/h04.html
This
interview is with an Electrical Engineer who survived the Bombing of
Hiroshima. Mr. Nakagawa was only 16
years old at the time. When the bomb
was dropped he was inside a brick building where he was working with many other
friends. Mr. Nakagawa saw a flash of
light, which he thought was an electrical accident. The sky then became dark, and then a great explosion. The building that he worked in collapsed,
and he was under the broken roof. He
managed to escape the building, and he found people outside with burnt
skin. He observed that most of the
building around had been destroyed, and that there were broken pieces of glass
everywhere. There was a fire in his
building and he extinguished it. He
stayed around the building with his friends until noon; none of his friends had
died. –Mr. Nakagawa says that the US is
responsible to maintain global peace.
We agree with his statement after reading his story. The discovery and manifestation of nuclear
fission surely changed history’s path in a way that we can hardly imagine.
Raby, Delbert; Battalion Trainer
for Invasion on Japan. Interviewed by
Andrew Luchsinger on March 12th, 2000. Approx. 3:30pm.
Delbert Raby gave us some insight with his views of
the discovery of nuclear fission/atomic bomb and its influence on him and his
Battalion. He feels that if it were not
for nuclear fission, and the bomb that was developed from it, he might not be
alive today. He says that there would
have been thousands, probably millions, of deaths on both sides. He doesn’t believe that anyone on our side
knew to what extent the Japanese were willing to go to protect their homeland
from invasion. He also told us that it
was a mistake for President Truman to not send a definite message to the
Japanese that unconditional surrender would not mean losing their emperor. Had he told them that, they most likely would
have surrendered, therefore, not forcing us to use the bomb since the war would
be over. He also told us that the idea
of demonstrating the bomb to be viewed by Japanese authorities was ruled out,
possibly because it was felt that the Japanese would see it as a trick and
would then know what to expect and be able to shoot down the plane carrying the
bomb. He also stated that demonstration
might be a waste of a useful bomb, and Uranium and Plutonium was not abundant. He also believes that had the Manhattan
Project never been started, it was possible that the Soviets could set up North
Japan under communist rule, as what happened in Europe and later in Korea and
Vietnam. We learned more than we could
have asked for in this interview. He
also provided us with a top-secret Japan Invasion Plan, which illustrated how
the U.S. was going to infiltrate the country.
This showed us that nuclear fission did have its advantages for all of
us in WWII.
Shishido,
Mr. Kosuke, Atomic Bomb Survivor. Interviewed by Mitsuru Ohba in Room 817 of
the Information Sciences Building, Hiroshima City University. May 8, 1995.
http://www.csi.ad.jp/ABOMB/Hibakusha/h02.html
Mr. Shishido is an Atomic Bomb
survivor from the Hiroshima bombing. At
the time of the bombing Mr. Shishido was in a shelter near Miyukibashi
Bridge. The shelter was about 2 miles
southeast from the center of the explosion.
He had seen a few B29 Bombers fly over the city at about 7:00 that morning. A while later he felt a “huge
explosion”. He thought that a regular
bomb had been dropped near the shelter.
When he came out of the shelter, there were people coming out of the
city asking for help. He said that
their skin was melted, and that it hung around their arms. He explains it as “…hell on earth…” Mr. Shishido said that it was high tide at
the time, and that he saw many people floating down the river, and then came
burning logs. He felt two gusts of
strong wind, and the second was stronger than the first. He also states “…I believe it was a sin
to kill so many people instantly…”
.The discovery of nuclear fission, and the start of the Manhattan
Project was obviously a turning point in this man’s life. His mind is now filled with terrifying
images that will never go away. His
city is now in ruins. Mr. Shishido’s
view was that he does not blame the U.S. for using the bomb, since it was a
war, but he says that it was not necessary for the U.S. to terminate the war in
that manner. According to Mr. Shishido, “…it was a shame.”
Tanaka, Dr. Ryso, Atomic Bomb Survivor. Interviewed by Students in the President’s
Office at Hiroshima City University.
May 16, 1995. http://www.csi.ad.jp/ABOMB/Hibakusha/h01.html
This interview is of a survivor of
the Hiroshima Bombing in Japan. Dr.
Ryso Tanaka was exercising in the sports ground of the Hiroshima City
University. While they were stretching,
Dr. Tanaka saw a plane fly over the city. Shortly after, he saw a strong light above him. At first, he had thought a gas tank near the
sports ground had exploded. He quickly
jumped into the nearby pool, while the other students laid down on the
ground. Dr. Tanaka stayed submerged for
about a minute as he saw the sky turn black.
He came up for air, and the sky kept getting darker, so he went back
under. He did this for about 20 minutes
until the sky started to get lighter.
After he felt that he wasn’t in danger, he got out of the pool. He said
that his friends’ skins were burnt, but not severely; they were still
alive. He carried them to the Judo
Practice building and covered them in wet clothes. While he was doing this, many people came into the building
seeking help. His next objective was to
move everyone to the nearby hospital.
He found his truck, which luckily, still worked. He drove as many people as he could find to
the hospital. Dr. Tanaka’s task for the
next six days was to find and help the injured. To date, Dr. Tanaka has not had any long-term effects from the
bomb. He has one thing that he wants to
tell the world; “Nuclear weapons are something which human beings should not
have. We have to understand this.”
--This interview showed us how much nuclear fission affected individuals in
Hiroshima, Japan. This man will never
forget the horror that plagued him that August morning in 1945.
Watanabe,
Sumiko; Atomic Bomb Survivor (Written Composition).
Children
of the A-Bomb. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1959. Pgs. 100-102.
This
composition was written by an 8th grade girl in a junior high school
in Japan, soon after the bombing. She
only remembers the day of the bombing as the day that her father was taken away
from her. She had wondered why they had
this ‘stupid war’, and where is the peace?
She says that she does not have a day pass where she does not think of
the bomb, and she wonders how much her father suffered that day. We can see
from this input, that the innocent Japanese did not want any of this to happen,
and that they do not understand what it was, but that is was the “destroyer of
worlds”.
Yamaoka,
Ms. Michiko, Atomic Bomb Survivor.
Interviewed by Mitsuru Ohba in the Peace Memorial Museum on June 4,
1995.
http://www.csi.ad.jp/ABOMB/Hibakusha/h03.html
Ms.
Yamaoka is a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing. She was in middle school at the time. She was walking on the street when she heard the sound of a
B29-bomber flying overhead. She was pondering the fact that the military had
not issued an alert. When the bomb was
dropped she saw a very strong light.
She instinctively put her hands over her face. Then she felt her face inflating, and she thought that she would
die. Ms. Yamaoka was then thrown into
the air, and knocked unconscious. When
she awoke, she was under a stack of broken bricks. After a while, her mother came and rescued her. She found that her skin was burnt and
hanging on her arms, and that her face was inflated like a balloon. She left and lived with her cousins for a
year. When she came back she found
Hiroshima to still be in ruins. —This interview was important because it gave
us a child’s point of view of the trauma.
Although nuclear fission was a frontier in history, it does not make it
a complete triumph.
“Atomic Alchemy: Nuclear Processes”, http://library.thinkquest.org/17940/index.html,
1998
The Atomic Alchemy web site was not
very informative. It promoted the use
of nuclear power instead of the conventional fossil fuels. It did give us the negative aspects of
nuclear power though. It informed us
about how there is much nuclear waste created in the process of manufacturing
power from the atomic nucleus. This
waste is properly taken care of and has caused less damage than the than fossil
fuels.
“Atomic
Archive” http://www.atomicarchive.com/main.shtml
AJ
Software & Multimedia, 1999-2000.
The Atomic Archive was probably the most useful site
pertaining to our project that we found.
It contained many biographies, pictures, information on fission,
timeline entries, and maps. It was also
one of the most organized sites that we visited. The videos that it included were also interesting, and they
contributed to the videos that we made on our site. This site was crucial to our project, and we recommend anyone to
visit the site just because it is such on interesting one.
Burchett,
Wilfred. Shadows of Hiroshima.
Norfolk:
The Thetford Press, 1983.
This book is rather small, but is set up
with seven main chapters. It starts
with a recollection of the bomb dropping on August 6th, 1945 which
is rather interesting because it analyses the event, and it also gave us a
great amount of detail about the communication and less important events that
occurred. The second chapter that we
paid close attention to was chapter five.
This chapter talked about the importance of having the bomb
politically. It explained to us that
the bomb used on Japan was not only to stop Japan from attacking the U.S., but
also to intimidate Russia so that they would not advance into Japan, thus
increasing their communist empire. The
bomb gave the United States great leverage, and quite simply gave us the ‘world
power’. This book helped us analyze the
repercussions of such a discovery and frontier such as nuclear fission
Casey,
William. The Secret War Against Hitler.
Washington
D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1988.
This book did not exactly have a direct
correlation with nuclear fission, but it did have sections that discussed
Germany’s plans to build an atomic bomb.
The book’s storyline included parts on how Germany and Britain gathered
their intelligence with Special Forces, and spies. This book also showed us how important nuclear fission is, not
just to the United States, but also to the world; and the good and evil that
surrounds it.
Cavendish,
Marshall. World War II: 1944-1945
New
York: Marshall Cavendish Corp., 1966,
This Encyclopedia was illustrated the entire way through,
which was very appealing. Although the
encyclopedia only gave us a view about fascist Germany during World War II, we
believe that it is important to attain an understanding of the ‘whole’ in order
to understand the people, the places, and the ideas that surround nuclear
fission and the birth of the atomic bomb.
“Chernobyl” Microsoft Encarta 97 Electronic Encyclopedia,
1997
Encarta’s
article on Chernobyl was useful to us when presenting the other side to nuclear
power—the disadvantages. Chernobyl is a
town that is located in the central north of Ukraine. It is about 130 km north of Kyyic and 20 km from the nuclear
power plant by the name of Chernobyl as well.
An improperly supervised experiment led to a steam explosion and
radionuclides were released into the atmosphere causing radiation exposure to
many people. Its effects could even be
seen in Great Britain. . Officials who were responsible for the reactor were
tried in 1987, and six persons were sentenced to labor camps. The other three
Chernobyl reactors were returned to operation that same year, and the immediate
evacuation zone of the disaster was later declared a national park. In 1991 the
government pledged to close down the entire Chernobyl' plant, but energy
demands and economic problems in Ukraine delayed the move. In mid-1994 Western
nations developed an aid package to help close the unsafe plant, and a year
later the Ukrainian government finally agreed to a plan that would shut down the
remaining reactors by the year 2000.
Collins, Stephen. “Collins Physics 2000” http://www.ashrosary.org/faculty/collins/home.htm,
2001.
We used
this site to help us understand the abbreviations and variables in Einstein’s
equation. I also helped us better
explain the mass to energy conversion.
This page is cited on our website.
“Cyber
Essays” http://www.cyberessays.com/History/ww.htm ,
1997-98.
This site included 6 Internet essays
related to the Nuclear Fission (Manhattan Project) and the atomic bomb. After reading the 6 essays, it made us begin
to believe that the Manhattan Project’s output was not something that MUST be
used, but rather, something that we would like to use in order to show our
political dominance. All of the essays
see nuclear fission as political leverage, and not a lifesaver; contrary to our
interviews. We believe that our
American interviewees saw it as a life saver because they were there at the
time; these essays are based on historical documents, and historical documents
do not contain statistics on ‘lives saved’.
We also discovered that President Roosevelt had known before hand that
the Japanese were going to bomb Pearl Harbor, and that it was not a
communication error. He wanted to have justification to enter WWII on the
Japanese offense. Roosevelt then used
the Manhattan Project as a way to beat Japan without forcing an invasion.
Davis,
James Martin. “COMPHIBPAC OPERATIONS PLAN A11-45: The Story of the Invasion of
Japan”. Military Document, provided by
interviewee, Delbert Raby.
This twelve-page document illustrates the
plan to invade Japan. It estimates the
death toll to be very high, roughly 250,000, with many more injured. It talks about the different battalions that
will invade, and what islands they will conquer. This shows how close Mr. Raby was to being put in the front line,
with a 95% chance of death. Had the
Manhattan Project never been funded, there would be a huge change in our
history books, and a lot more bloodshed.
This is what makes nuclear fission such a frontier, it was a whole new
subject, and provided for a whole new ballgame.
E.B.
Badger and Sons, “The Costs of the Manhattan Project” http://www.brook.edu/FP/PROJECTS/NUCWCOST/MANHATTN.HTM,
1996.
This site
included the costs of the Manhattan Project, as well as the costs of many other
weapons used in World War II. The
Manhattan project included many things: Oak Ridge, K-25 Gaseous Diffusion
Plant, Y-12 Electromagnetic Plant, Clinton Engineer Works, HQ and central
utilities, Clinton Laboratories, S-50 Thermal Diffusion Plant, Hanford Engineer
Works, Special Operating Materials, Los Alamos Project, Research and
Development, Government Overhead, and Heavy Water Plants. The grand total reached $1,889,604,000,
which is equivalent to $21,570,821,000 in 1996 money standards. This total did not include $76,000,000 spent
by the Army Air Forces on Project Silverplate.
We learned from this source that Project Silverplate was the
modification of 46 B-29 Bombers, training of personnel and logistical support. We also gathered the information of the
launching point for attacks on Japan, which was Tinian Island. This added another piece to our puzzle.
“Einstein:
Image and Impact” http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/
American
Institute of Physics, 1996.
This site included everything throughout
Albert Einstein’s life, including in his nuclear years. It shows his primitive ideas about nuclear
energy, as well as his personal views on the subject. This site also received various awards for its content; we had to
view it.
Elert, Glenn. “Einstein's Letters
to Roosevelt” http://hypertextbook.com/eworld/einstein.shtml
This site included re-typed and formatted copies, of
the actual letters that Einstein had sent to President Roosevelt explaining to
him the possibilities of using Uranium-235 in order to produce a self-sustained
chain reaction, which could be used to create a ‘super-bomb’, thus, help win
the war. We copied, photo edited, and
reformatted these letters to use on our website.
Erikson,
Kai. “Of Accidental Judgments and
Casual Slaughters”
This article was a copy that our
history teacher found for us. It was a very informational document because it
included alternatives to dropping the bomb on Hiroshima, and we felt that this
information was crucial to analyze the affects of nuclear fission. One of the
alternatives proposed in the document was that the U.S. could tell the Japanese
government that the U.S. was planning to drop a bomb on a built-up area with
advance notice. This proposal seems
reasonable to the commoner, but not if you look at the possibilities. If the bomb were not to detonate at the predicted
time with the predicted force, it would “do enormous damage to American
credibility”. This would weaken us as a
nation. Also, if the Japanese knew
where the bombing was to take place, they could easily bring American POWs into
the area, thus preventing the U.S. from bombing. Another option was to bomb a purely military target, with no
civilians. This would work, except for
the fact that the Japanese did not have a military target big enough to
demonstrate the bomb’s awesome power; the U.S. needed to show just how powerful
it was. A third option was to detonate
the bomb in a remote corner of the world.
The Japanese could then bring in diplomatic observers to witness the
destruction. Once again, if the bomb
were to not detonate, it would look poorly upon the U.S. If it were to detonate, it would give the
Japanese too much information on the detonation advancements that the U.S. had
made. The fourth option was to drop the
bomb on an uninhabited area without notice so that the Japanese could not
prepare. This might work, but then
again, an uninhabited area will not demonstrate it’s full potential. Besides, the U.S. did not have hundreds of
bombs ready to use; it only had two for use in early August. A third would be ready toward the end of August,
but that would mean postponement of the war.
And if the U.S. had used a couple bombs for demonstration, and then with
no Japanese compliance had decided to bomb cities, it would have had to wait
until late September, still before the date set for invasion. By then, the weather may not have permitted
it. The U.S.’s time schedule was not
the sole factor. The Soviet Union was
also ready to invade, thus time was limited.
The smartest move for the United States would have been to just drop the
bomb on a bustling city, demonstrate the destructive power, and end the war
while preventing the Soviets from invading.
Excite, http://www.excite.com,
Excite Inc., 1995-2001.
This search engine was one of four that we used
often. It was the most used because of
its display. It was easy to use and
provided us with many links to pages that fit our interests.
http://www.fnal.gov/pub/fermi_biography.html
, January 14, 1997.
This site
included a very complete biography on Enrico Fermi. Fermi was the scientist who created the first-ever sustained
nuclear chain reaction. We used many
parts of this biography on our website.
This site also included a few pictures of Fermi, which we also
used. The commentary on this page was
also a worthwhile read.
“Fermi
Creates Controlled Nuclear Reaction” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dp42fe.html,
WBGH, 1998.
This site
was entirely dedicated to Enrico Fermi.
From this site we learned more about what Enrico Fermi did to contribute
to the developments of nuclear fission.
The site discussed how Enrico Fermi created the first self-sustaining
chain reaction. Fermi also discovered
how to control the acceleration of the reaction by using cadmium rods, which
would absorb neutrons. Absorbing
neutrons would slow the reaction, since it would not allow as many neutrons to
split fissionable molecules. This site
also answered one of our questions, which was: “Could this first controlled
experiment cause damage to its surroundings if it does not go to plan?” It said in the article that there was a
danger of blowing up half of Chicago, but it was very unlikely since, in
theory, it would work. One line on this
page that we especially liked was the line that stated that this was “the first
controlled flow of energy from a source other than the Sun.” This was entirely true, and it made us
ponder how much energy is available to mankind. It’s amazing!
Friedman,
S. Morgan. “Albert Einstein Online” http://www.westegg.com/einstein/
This site
was very extensive about Einstein and his work. It provided pictures and quotes; quotes which we reviewed but did
not use. The site had many links in
German, which were not of use to us, but the English text was in fact
useful. The links to the information
about the physics that Einstein was involved in, helped us grasp some of the
concepts of energy and quantum mechanics that are involved in the science of
nuclear fission.
Google, http://www.google.com/,
Google, 2001.
This was the best search engine of
all. It gave us the fastest and most
relevant results. If it were not for
this search engine, most of our information would not have been found, and I
think that a tool such as this one deserves recognition in our research.
Hachiya,
Michihiko. Hiroshima Diary: The Journal of a Japanese Physician.
New York:
Van Rees Press, 1955.
This book
was translated into English and written in a diary form, starting from August 6th,
1945 to September 30th, 1945.
This book was a very suspenseful book; it vividly described the event of
the bomb drop on Hiroshima, and really gave us a sense of what it was like to
be there. It was a very scary event,
and the confusion that was brought with it added to the matter. Nuclear fission was a frontier in history;
it was neither necessarily bad nor good.
This book shows the horrible consequences of the project, but does not
include the economical benefits. We
would need to search for a book written by a political American, and we found
many books, as well as people that stressed these aspects.
Hansen,
Chuck. U.S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History
Texas:
Aerofax Inc., 1988.
This book was more of a picture book, than a novel. It provided pictures of the nuclear weaponry
of the United States as it has advanced throughout the years starting with the
Manhattan Project. This showed us what
effect the first concepts of nuclear fission had in terms of nuclear military
technology. The book also contained
information and diagrams about the specifications of different types of atomic
weapons. This book showed us a more
recent view of nuclear technology, and did not include much of a historical
aspect.
http://www.rjgeib.com/heroes/truman/truman-atom-bomb.html
This site had letter that Harry
Truman wrote with his justification for the use of the atomic bomb on
Japan. He says that the bomb was
dropped to save 125,000 youngsters on both the American and Japanese side; and
another 500,000 on each side from being maimed for life. This letter was sent unconfidentially to Irv
Kupcinet of the Chicago Sun Times.
Although this document provides us with a justification for Truman’s
actions, it does not hide the fact that we murdered 70,000 instantly, and that
we killed innocent women and children intentionally. This again poses the question whether a frontier such as nuclear
fission was beneficial or not. Maybe
it’s not to be answered.
Healy, Paul. “The Cold War”. http://expert.cc.purdue.edu/~phealy/welcome.html
This site
had information on the cold war. We
researched the cold war because we wanted to know what the nuclear fission and
the birth of the atomic bomb had started in terms of nuclear fear. The site included information on domestic
policy, foreign policy and the arms race.
We used this information not necessarily for our website, but to get a
better understanding of what the cold war was in general. We then searched for more detailed sites,
although this site had an abundant amount.
Heinle,
Nick, “The Manhattan Project”
http://www.gis.net/~carter/manhattan/,
March 27, 1997.
Out of all Internet sources, this
site was the most organized. It also
included a very broad scope on nuclear fission and the Manhattan Project. The first link on the site is an overview on
the project's goals, as well as on the technical information involved with the
bomb itself. This was a good place for
us to start, since it gave us a tolerant perspective on what was involved. We learned about the primary individuals
that ran the project. In 1942 General Leslie Groves was chosen to lead the
project. Leslie Groves appointed J.
Robert Oppenheimer as director of the Manhattan Project. We also read about Neils Bohr, Joseph
Carter, Enrico Fermi and Richard Feynman.
The site included biographies on these scientists, as well as their
involvement with the project. Another
section of the site included a vocabulary list and diagram of the Atomic
Bomb. The vocabulary was especially
important because it helped us understand further documents in our research as
well as this one. Included with the
diagram of the bomb was a table showing the effects of the explosion,
contrasted with distance from ‘ground-zero’.
After reading this very comprehensive site, we emailed the creator of
the site asking for any artifacts he may have from the time period. He never responded to us, which was rather
disappointing, but his website was extremely helpful by itself.
Herken, Gregg. The Winning Weapon: The Atomic Bomb in
the Cold War 1945-1950
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.,
1980.
This book gave us a few statistics
of the bombing of Hiroshima. We learned
that roughly 78,000 Japanese people died in direct correlation to the
bombing. We also found that 20 air
prisoners of war, whom were from the United States, were killed. We found this fact odd, since we were
‘bombing to save American lives’. The
rest of the book stressed the nuclear troubles with Russia. It helped us see what changes in foreign
diplomacy came about after the invention and demonstration of the bomb.
Hersey, John. Hiroshima.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985.
This book is about six human beings who lived through the greatest
single manmade disaster in history.
This book was all about what these six people: a clerk, a widowed
seamstress, a physician, a Methodist minister, a young surgeon, and a German
Catholic priest; were doing at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945. This time and date being the time and date
of the bombing of Hiroshima, of course.
This book is very detailed, and really gives the reader a sense of the
tone and atmosphere that surrounded these characters at the time of the
bombing. Getting a feeling for the
atmosphere helped us analyze the extent of wrongdoing that the bomb caused that
day. It was hard to believe what luck
the characters had in surviving the disaster.
For example, one man was pinned between two support beams from his
hospital, and only his head was above water. This shows how lucky some people were to survive it. Most other people did not have a
prayer. This shows how influential such
a frontier such as nuclear fission really was.
Was it worth the horror?
Hewitt, Paul G.. Conceptual Physics.
Menlo Park: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc., 1999.
This physics book helped us grasp the concept behind nuclear
fission. I contained a chapter on the
process and technicalities of fission.
It also helped us relate the fission with Einstein’s renowned equation
E=MC2. We mainly used this
book in our technical explanations of nuclear fission found in the
‘Manifestation’ portion of our historical website.
Infoseek,
http://
infoseek.go.com/ Go.com, 1998-2001.
We used this search engine to find mainly biographies
and pictures for our website. It was
one of our most useful research tools.
Kraushaar,
Jack and Ristinen, Robert. Energy
and Problems of a Technical Society.
John
Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1988
This
book talked about all forms of energy and its effects on society. This book made predictions with fossil fuels
and predicted that the US would be down to its last 10% by the year 1999, which
did not materialize, as we all know.
The only chapter in this book that pertained to our topic was chapter 4;
Nuclear Energy. This book explained how
a nuclear chain reaction occurs. This
is very important because it was this reasoning that brought us to the invention
of the atomic bomb. When a neutron is
shot at one molecule of Uranium 235, the uranium splits into two molecules;
Barium and Krypton (gamma rays are also released). Two more neutrons are released in this process, which sums to 3
total free neutrons. These three
neutrons scatter on to intercept more molecules of Uranium and it splits them,
which also produce more neutrons. This is a violent chain reaction that can
generate an immense source of energy.
When this energy is put in a smaller container the potential gets
greater. Thus, the basis of the atomic
bomb was formed.
“Leo Szilard Papers”
http://orpheus-1.ucsd.edu/speccoll/testing/html/mss0032d.html
, July 24th, 1996.
This site
was mainly a biography on Leo Szilard with supporting text. We read through the document, which was
delicately similar to The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard
Rhodes. We chose certain paragraphs and
we used on our website to describe Leo Szilard, and what he did for the
development of the frontier.
Lineberry, William P. Arms Control (The Reference Shelf: Vol.
52 #6).
New York: The H. W. Wilson
Company, 1979.
The first
chapter of this book was the most important to us. We especially like the first line “This may be the only race
in which the whole world ends up losing.” This race, being the Nuclear Arms
race, has put many people in constant fear for the last 50 years. Although the fear is mostly gone today, it
still lingers. All of this fear, also
known as the ‘Cold War’, has all been made possible because of one decision;
the decision to start a project code named ‘The Manhattan Project. We found this book to be very beneficial.
This web site included a short
biography about Lisa Meitner. She was
the daughter of a successful lawyer in Vienna, Austria. She was very interested in mathematics and
physics, and even entered the prestigious Vienna University. Lisa Meitner wrote her thesis on the
conduction of inhomogeneous solids. She
was very well known in her lifetime, and had many famous peers. Some of her friends were Niels Bohr and his
wife Margarethe, Max Born, Max Planck, Wolfgang Pauli, James Chadwick and
Albert Einstein. Lisa Meitner, like
Marie Curie, was often seen as a feminist symbol. Also, in 1966 she won the Fermi award, the Max Plank Medal and
Leibnitz medal. Although many people
are not aware of her previous existence, she is a very famous woman that
contributed to science just as much as most famous men.
Long,
Doug. “Hiroshima: Was It Absolutely Necessary?”
Wednesday,
April 03, 1996.
This article was given to us by our
last year’s history teacher. After
reading the article, it gave us both more understanding about how the U.S.
entered WWII, and why the Manhattan Project was started. It conveyed that the attitude of the people
in the United States played a big role in the decision to use this technology,
although they did not directly affect it.
Propaganda influenced many people, especially since people were not
exactly aware what was going on politically.
Many posters and news articles tried to convey that the Japanese were
sub-human evil monsters; they only wanted to invade and take over the
world. This brought Americans to
believe that they have a duty to do everything in their power to help defeat
the enemy. Killing was only a
consequence of defeat. Families would
pitch in any amount of scrap resources that they had, if it only meant that it
would be turned into a bullet to kill the enemy. Also, the fact that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor on
December 7th, 1941 and killed 2,300 Americans inspired a rage in the
nation’s people. What the public did
not know was that the incident could have been avoided had we acted according
to the warning signals that had accumulated in the few days prior. I believe that the U.S. had somewhat
provoked the attack, considering that they had “put all of their eggs in one
basket”. Many speculate that the U.S.
wanted a reason to enter the war with Japan, and this was its chance. Therefore, the bombing of Hiroshima can be
thought of as revenge, or it can be thought of as “our chance to enter the
war”.
We found
this web site on the search engine “Yahoo!”.
This site stressed the effects of the atomic bomb. This information was of great importance to
us, since the bomb is the result of nuclear fission. This shows how the discovery of nuclear fission was a major
frontier in history. This site
included some quotes about the first dropping of the “Little Boy”, the name
given to the first Atomic bomb that was to be used in warfare. One quote was from the pilots of the “Enola
Gay”, the name of the B-29 Bomber airplane used to drop the bomb. Although the pilots did not see the horror,
they could imagine what was happening under “…that awful cloud...boiling up,
mushrooming.” One of the hyperlinks on
this site was a page that had interviews with bomb survivors. The interview that sticks in our minds is
the one with Dr. Ryuso Tanaka, President of Hiroshima City University. He was a survivor who escaped the bomb blast
by diving into a nearby pool. The
students that he was exercising with, all felt the effects of the bomb. When Dr. Ryuso Tanaka got out of the pool, he
found his peers badly burned and injured.
He spent the next few days looking and aiding survivors. This was a major turning point just in his
life, let alone the lives of thousands more.
Overall, this was a good source for our understanding, and it provided
us with three primary sources.
National
Atomic Museum. http://www.atomicmuseum.com/tour/index.cfm
, 2000.
This site was very well developed. It had information on many different natures
of nuclear energy, this included a Manhattan Project sub-link, and a Trinity Test
sub-link. This site was very graphic;
it provided us with my color pictures and text. It was one of the most well organized sites that we had visited,
although the information was common. It
was a nice addition to our research, and we returned to the site a few times to
retrieve information.
“Nuclear
Age Timeline” http://www.em.doe.gov/timeline/
U.S.
Department of Energy, November 15th, 1999.
We used this site because of its
timeline. It helped us correlate the different events around the time of
WWII. This site was crucial to our
understanding.
“Nuclear Energy” Microsoft Encarta 97 Electronic
Encyclopedia, 1997
This encyclopedia provided us with an
overview of nuclear power. We were able
to quote a generalized statement of nuclear power form it. This site, like many others stated how the
process of fission produces nuclear energy.
It also mentioned some of the different types of nuclear reactors used
to harness this energy; reactors such as propulsion reactors, which propels
things such as navy ships, research reactors, used to conduct fission research,
and breeder reactors that creates more fissionable atoms during the process of
fission. This article did broaden our
knowledge of nuclear power and reactors but it was not too useful in the
creation of our website.
Nuclear Power, http://www.posse.net/pveplan.htm,
Communications Posse, January 11, 2001
This
site provided us with extensive research on nuclear power. A gave us a broad spectrum on the benefits
and downfalls of nuclear power. The
content of the web page reinforced what we had previously learned from our
other sources; it spoke of how fission occurred and how it produced tremendous
amounts of energy. It also gave us much information on how much safety is taken
into account when harnessing this nuclear energy in a nuclear power plant. It emphasized the efficiency and cleanliness
of nuclear power when compared to that of fossil fuels. It is also cheaper to make and is ultimately
a better source of fuel than our current fuels. This website provided us with the information we needed giving us
a look on how nuclear power can be used in a beneficial manner.
“Oppenheimer”
http://www.garfield.k12.ut.us/PHS/History/US/1940/H-BOMB/oppenheimer.html
This
site was a very graphic-limited site, but it did include a few general
paragraphs on Oppenheimer. We basically
used this website to help us confirm some of the information that we had
already found.
Osada,Dr.
Arata. Children
of the A-Bomb
New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons,
1959.
This
book gave us a vast variety of primary sources. It included interviews from many of the children that survived
the atomic bombings in Japan. We
believe that this book is crucial to our research. Hearing the story from Japanese people is very different from
what the United States brings you to believe.
One aspect that all of the interviewees had in common, was the fact that
all of the families never gave up. Even
though they were badly burned and injured, they did not give up. The parents of the children would go find
their children and care for them, and the children would not let their parents
die; although many did die, their devotion to one another is something that
proves that these people were innocent.
They had never done anything in their lives to hurt anyone, and they
ended up losing family members. This is
something that has been regretted by everyone that had a part in the production
of the atomic bomb, as well as the common civilian.
Powers,
Thomas. “Was It Right?” The Atlantic
Monthly, July 1995.
This article once again stressed the
morality of this controversial frontier.
One of the main people in this article was Henry L. Stimson, Secretary
of War. He was disturbed by the
firebombing of Japan, and was very frightened of the bomb. In his diary he would refer to it as “the
thing,” “the terrible,” “the dreadful,” “the awful,” “the diabolical.” “At
no time, from 1941 to 1945, did I ever hear it suggested by the President, or
by any other responsible member of the government, that atomic energy should
not be used in the war.” Reading
these quotes, it made us think twice about what really went on in Washington
during this crucial time. Maybe the
decision was not ‘right’ but influenced?
This idea was supported greatly in the other articles that we read.
Rhodes,
Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb
New
York: Simon & Schuster, 1986
This book provided more details about
what led up to the bomb than any other source that we had. Although this book was large, it gave us a
view of the lives of the great chemists and physicists of the 20th
century. We got an opportunity to see
exactly what sparked the idea of a chain fission reaction. This book showed us diagrams of ideas
presented by Bohr, Rutherford, Szilard, Einstein and many more. It also explained many of the political
battles that went on during the Manhattan Project. Not only did it provide information about the production of the
atomic bomb, but also its after effects.
It showed us pictures of the many Japanese that suffered from the
explosion. This gave us a better grasp
of how much of a frontier in history nuclear fission and the atomic bomb really
was; and is. Without this book, I don’t
think we could have had such a good grasp on how many years of research in
physics and chemistry it took to understand the laws of a chain reaction. It wasn’t so easy to comprehend back in the
days when it was still a theory. It
took them many years to find the right fissionable material, Uranium 235; this
element proved to be the key to the end of World War II, as well a key to mass
destruction and fatalities.
“Robert’s
Nuclear Weapons Page: Mushroom Clouds” http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Cockpit/8997/pics.html
This site had various actual photographs
of the atomic bomb tests and wartime uses. We used these vivid photographs on
our website. This was the best
collection of mushroom clouds that we had seen yet; they were used in the
making of our title. It proved to be
very beneficial.
Teller,
Edward and Brown, Allen. The Legacy of Hiroshima.
Garden
City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1962.
We attained this book from the Berkeley
Public Library. Although most of the
book discusses the Cold War, which was not over at the time, it did include
some very good commentary on the production of the atomic bomb. The book discusses the Los Alamos
laboratories and the testing in Alamogordo, New Mexico. This book provided some quotes that were of
use. Edward Teller, the author of the
book, met many of the famous scientists who worked on the project, which made
this book a reliable source of information.
His encounters with these scientists brought up many stories that were
interesting. We concluded from this
book that at the time, Teller was not against the use of the bomb unlike
Szilard, but afterwards he regrets his attitude.
“The
Aftermath of the Mission” http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/air_power/b29aft.htm
This site had a small paragraph
describing the events that occurred at the end of World War II. It described a man who worked in a POW coal
mine; when the bomb went off, it meant survival for this man. He only weighed 98 pounds after 40 months of
captivity. Nuclear fission saved this
man’s life.
“The
Century: Ultimate Power” The History Channel, hosted by Peter Jennings.
Aired:
December 5, 1999 at 12:00am pst.
We accidentally found this program airing
one night, and we found it to be very interesting. The program talked about how the Manhattan Project was formed,
and how it was under complete secrecy.
When the bomb was finally finished, it was tested. Many people were interviewed about the
testing and nobody could believe what they had built. They said that everyone felt the same; they felt saddened by the
truth. This corresponds with our interview
with Florence Catone; she also felt the same.
We learned that some of the scientists started a petition to send to
President Truman stating that they did not want to use the bomb except for
demonstration purposes; they received many signatures. The president was in Europe at the time
observing the destruction in Berlin.
The president had just previously sent a letter stating that he wanted
the bomb to be used as soon as it was ready.
He never received the petition.
The bombs “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” were used just 3 weeks after
testing. After the bombs were dropped
from the B-29 bombers, all of the scientists were happy that the war was over,
but not about the killing. One of the
interviewees said that he thought that Nagasaki was unnecessary. This also corresponds with the feelings of
Florence Catone. They actually must all
feel the same way.
“The
Manhattan Project”
http://www.fatherryan.org/nuclearincidents/Manhatta.htm
This
Internet page provided us with a timeline of the Manhattan Project. We used this information in conjunction with
other timelines in order to create mental timeline of our own. We needed many
sources, this required discarding many of the timeline entries that we found
while researching. This site was
crucial, because without it, we would be lacking many key points. We used these key points on the ‘Production’
and ‘Aftermath’ parts of our historical website.
“The
Japanese Surrender”
http://clio.nara.gov/exhall/wwii/surrender/surrender.html
This site gave us the information we
needed to present the Japanese Surrender on our website. It included a picture along with text, and
also the exact document that was signed.
We found this site to be very useful.
Thomas,
Evan. “Why We Did It”. Newsweek, July
24th, 1995.