The Manhattan Project

By Mina Rao

Introduction
By August, 1945 World War II was coming to an end. But although the Nazis had already been defeated in Germany, the Americans still had to face the relentless Japanese. The solution to this problem was a powerful, deadly weapon that would cost the Japanese hundreds of thousands of lives. While the dropping of the atomic bomb to many was considered a mistake for the mass destruction it caused, the secret planning behind it was crucial in helping the Allies create it before any other country, and ultimately caused them to win the war.

Who Was Involved?

Many of the scientists involved in the Manhattan Project were Jewish people who had fled from Europes Anti-Semitic policies. Among them were Albert Einstein, who left Germany in 1933, Niels Bohr, who fled from Denmark in 1943, and Lise Meitner, who left Austria in 1938. Other scientists involved in the project include Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, James Chadwick, and many more. Some of these scientists were not directly involved in the Manhattan Project, like Lise Meitner and Albert Einstein, even though he is considered the father of the atomic bomb. The man in charge of the project and its secrecy was Brigadier General Leslie Groves.

The Early Work

On October, 11th, 1939, Leo Szilard, Edward Teller, and Alexander Sachs sent a letter to President Roosevelt expressing the possibility of designing an atomic bomb. The letter was signed by Einstein in the hopes that it would be taken more seriously. Upon receiving the letter Roosevelt decided to take immediate action by having 1,200 tons of uranium ore shipped from the Belgian Congo. Then in early 1940, the government gave the atomic research its first grant of $6,000 to Columbia University. The project was later moved to the University of Chicago, where the first nuclear chain reaction took place on December 2nd, 1942.

Los Alamos
To ensure the privacy of the Manhattan Project, the plants used in atomic production were spread out in various sites. The first site was in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and later sites were built in New York City, Berkeley, Milwaukee, and Detroit. But of all these sites the most well known is the Los Alamos site in New Mexico, often referred to as Site Y. In the Los Alamos location, extreme measures of safety were taken to keep the project a secret. Checks were not allowed to be cashed and no one was allowed a checking account at locals banks. Weddings and deaths couldnt be announced in newspapers and babies had a post office box number as their name on birth certificates. Many scientists also used false names and phone calls and letters had to be monitored.

Roosevelts Death
On April 12th, 1945, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died, shocking the nation and further complicating the production of the atomic bomb. Vice President Harry S. Truman took his place as president, but at the time hadnt even heard of the Manhattan Project. Furthermore, Truman was scheduled to attend a conference in Potsdam, Germany, along with Stalin and Churchill, without the information of whether or not the atomic bomb would work, so was unsure whether to tell the Soviet Union of its existence, which complicated relations between the United States and Russia. Some historians say that the Potsdam Conference marked the beginnings of the Cold War.

Trinity
Trinity was the code name for the atomic bomb test. The test was scheduled on July 16th, at 4:00 in the morning. The test was to be done secretly, with the exception of reporter William Laurence, who agreed to only write about what he had seen after the war. However, on the morning of July 16th it lightly rained, delaying the test to 5:30 am. The test worked, creating a massive explosion of light. Scientist Robert Oppenheimer upon seeing the explosion quoted from the Bhagavad Gita,
O If the radiance of a thousand suns

Were to burst at once into the sky That would be like the splendor of the Mighty One I am become death The shatterer of worlds

Fat Man and Little Boy

On August 6th, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb called Little Boy on Hiroshima, Japan. The explosion flattened 6,820 buildings and severely damaged 3,750 more. It is impossible to give an exact number of how many people died from the bomb because many people died from radiation poisoning months and even years later. But over a quarter of the 300,000 citizens in Hiroshima died instantly. Three days later, Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki, killing or injuring nearly 100,000 Japanese. The Japanese finally accepted the Allies terms of surrender on August 14th, 1945.

The End