(*** The following is an OCRed HTMLized version of a phamphlet concerning the TRINITY test site - available at White Sands Missile Range. Errors in "translation" must be assumed.
I did not include any of the photos but the map (70 K) at the end of the pamphlet is presented, with the location of Red Canyon Range Camp added. ***)
[ Photo of atomic blast deleted]
|
"The effects could well be called unprecedented, magnificent, beautiful,
stupendous, and terrifying. No man-made phenomenon of such tremendous power
had ever occurred before. The lighting effects beggared description. The whole
country was lighted by a searing light with the intensity many times that of
the midday sun. * Brig. Gen. Thomas Farrell |
Radiation levels in the fenced, ground zero area are low. On an average the levels are only 10 times greater than the region's natural background radiation. A one-hour visit to the inner fenced area will result in a whole body exposure of one-half to one milliroentgen (mrem).
To put this in perspective, a U.S. adult receives an average of 90 milliroentgens every year from natural and medical sources. For instance, the Department of energy says we receive between 35 and 50 milliroentgens every year from the sun and from 20 to 35 milliroentgens every year from our food. Living in a brick house adds 50 milliroentgens of exposure every year compared to living in a frame house. Finally, flying coast to coast in a jet airliner gives an exposure of between three and five milliroentgens on each trip.
Although radiation levels are low, some feel any extra exposure should be avoided. The decision is yours. It should be noted that small children and pregnant women are potentially more at risk than the rest of the population and are generally considered groups who should only receive exposure in conjunction with medical diagnosis and treatment Again, the choice is yours.
At ground zero, Trinitite, the green glassy substance found in the area, is still radioactive and must not be picked up.
Trinity Site is where the first atomic bomb was tested at 5:29:45 a.m. Mountain War Time on July 16, 1945. The 19-kiloton explosion not only led to a quick end to the war in the Pacific but also ushered the world into the atomic age. All life on Earth has been touched by the event which took place here.
The 51,500-acre area was declared a national historic landmark in 1975. The landmark includes base camp, where the scientists and support group lived; ground zero, where the bomb was placed for the explosion; and the McDonald ranch house, where the plutonium core to the bomb was assembled. Visitors to a Trinity Site Open House see ground zero and the McDonald ranch house. In addition, one of the old instrumentation bunkers is visible beside the readjust west of ground zero.
Under the Manhattan Project three large facilities were constructed. At Oak Ridge, Tenn., huge gas diffusion and electromagnetic process plants were built to separate uranium 235 from its more common form, uranium 238. Hanford, Wash. became the home for nuclear reactors which produced a new element called plutonium. Both uranium 235 and plutonium are fissionable and can be used to produce an atomic explosion.
Los Alamos was established in northern New Mexico to design and build the bomb. At Los Alamos many of the greatest scientific minds of the day labored over the theory and actual construction of the device. The group was led by Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer who is credited with being the driving force behind building a workable bomb by the end of the war.
In an atomic explosion, a chain reaction picks up speed as atoms split, releasing neutrons plus great amounts of energy. The escaping neutrons strike and split more atoms, thus releasing still more neutrons and energy. In a nuclear explosion this all occurs in a millionth of a second with billions of atoms being split.
Project leaders decided a test of the plutonium bomb was essential before it could be used as a weapon of war. From a list of eight sites in California/Texas, New Mexico and Colorado, Trinity Site was chosen as the test site. The area already was controlled by the government because it was part of the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range which was established in 1942. The secluded Jornada del Muerto was perfect as it provided isolation for secrecy and safety, it was still close to Los Alamos.
[Photo of horses deleted]
Sgt. Marvin Davis with police horses Argo and Peergo at basecamp.
In the fall of 1944 soldiers started arriving at Trinity Site to prepare for the test. Marvin Davis and his military police unit arrived from Los Alamos at the site on Dec. 30, 1944. The unit set up security checkpoints around the area and had plans to use horses to ride patrol. According to Davis the distances were too great and they resorted to jeeps and trucks for transportation. The horses were sometimes used for polo, however. Davis said that Capt Bush, basecamp commander, somehow got the soldiers real polo equipment to play with but the) preferred brooms and a soccer ball.
Other recreation at the site included volleyball and hunting. Davis said Capt. Bush allowed the soldiers with experience to use the Army rifles to hunt deer and pronghorn. The meat was then cooked up in the mess hall. Leftovers went into soups which Davis said were excellent.
Of course, some of the soldiers were from cities and unfamiliar with being outdoors a lot. Davis said he went to relieve a guard at the Mockingbird Gap post and the soldier told Davis he was surprised by the number of "crawdads" in the area considering it was so dry. Davis gave the young man a quick lesson on scorpions and warned him not to touch.
[Photo of about 18 guys posing in sun with shirts off]
Camp engineers from Sgt. Carl Rudder's scrap book. They are labeled: 1st row Killmer, Fenchie, Bontley, Leary, Spry, Raub, Kemp, Stockton and Rauldolph, 2nd row Cordon, Cox, Harrison, King, Bres, Sigler, Matthews, "Weadle-Walve" and Capt. Gueary.
[Photo of two guys and a dead deer]
Cart Rudder (left) and Harrison show off a buck killed in the Oscuras.
Throughout 1945 other personnel arrived at Trinity Site to help prepare for the test. Carl Rudder was inducted into the Army on Jan. 26, 1945. He said he passed through four camps, took basic for two days and arrived at Trinity Site on Feb. 17. On arriving he was put in charge of what he called the "East Jesus and Socorro Light and Water Company." It was a one-man operation - himself. He was responsible for maintaining generators, wells, pumps and doing the power line work.
A friend of Rudder's, Loren Pourg, had a similar experience. He was a fireman in civilian life and ended up trained as a fireman for the Army. He worked as the station sergeant at Los Alamos before being sent to Trinity Site in April 1945. In a letter Bourg said, "I was sent down here to take over the fire prevention and fire department Upon arrival I found I was the fire department, period."
As the soldiers at Trinity Site settled in they became familiar with Socorro. They tried to use the water out of the ranch wells but found it so alkaline they couldn't drink it In fact, they used Navy salt-water soap for bathing. They hauled drinking water from the fire house in Socorro.
Gasoline and diesel was purchased from the Standard bulk plant in Socorro. According to Davis, they established a post office box, number 632, in Socorro so getting their mail was more convenient The trips into town also offered them the chance to get their hair cut in a realbarbershop. If they didn't use the shop, SgL Greyshock used horse clippers to trim their hair.
Because of this possibility. Jumbo was designed and built. Originally it was 25 feet long, 10 feet in diameter and weighed 214 tons. Scientists were planning to put the bomb in this huge steel jug because it could contain the TNT explosion if the chain reaction failed to materialize. This would prevent the plutonium from being lost. If the explosion occurred as planned. Jumbo would be vaporized.
[photo of big cyleldrical tank - walls about 6 inches thick]
Jumbo is unloaded at the railroad siding called Pope, N.M. Jumbo was manufactured in Ohio by Bobcock and Wilcox
Jumbo was brought to Pope, N.M., by rail and unloaded. A specially built trailer with 64 wheels was used to move Jumbo the 25 miles to Trinity Site.
As confidence in the plutonium bomb design grew it was decided not to use Jumbo. Instead, Jumbo was placed under a steel tower about 800 yards from ground zero. The blast destroyed the tower, but Jumbo survived intact.
Today Jumbo rests at the entrance to ground zero so all can see it. The ends are missing because, in 1946, the Army detonated eight 500-pound bombs inside it Because Jumbo was standing on end, the bomb were stacked in the bottom and the asymmetry of the explosion blew the ends off.
To calibrate the instruments which would be measuring the atomic explosion and to practice a countdown, the Manhattan scientists ran a simulated blast on May 7. They stacked 100 tons of TNT onto a 20-foot wooden platform just southeast of ground zero. Louis Hempelmann inserted a small amount of radioactive material from Hanford into tubes running through the stack of crates. The scientists hoped to get a feel for how the radiation might spread in the real test by analyzing this test The explosion destroyed the platform, leaving a small crater with trace amounts of radiation in it.
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 pluto- nilim core began. According to Raemer Schreiber, Robert Bacher was the advisor and Marshall HoUoway 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.
[Photo of big tower - looks like a big windmill tower]
100-foot tower at ground zero.
[ Full page photo of atomic bomb 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 accidently 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 vaporized the steel tower and melted the desert sand and turned 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.
[Photo of guy looking at mound of concrete maybe 2 feet by 2 feet by 18 inches high with maybe 12 pieces of 3/4 inch re-bar sticking up a foot or so.]
This Carl Rudder photo shows an unidentified soldier in the ground zero crater. He is inspecting one of the footings to the 100-foot tower.
[Photo of small sturdy 1 story house]
Carl Rudder's photo of the McDonald ranch house after the test
[Photo - 3 heads in a 10 foot wide pond.]
Soldiers and scientists relax in the McDonald water tank on a hot day.
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 H bombing crews. {Ed Thelen's comment - I bet that "abandoned" is governmentise for chasing the family out, and then paying them peanuts years later when they squawked enough! This was the time of TVA and Oak Ridge.} The house stood empty until the Manhattan Project support personnel arrived in early 1945.
Inside the house the northeast room (the master bedroom) was designated the assembly room. Workbenches 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 Paik Service to com- pletely 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.
Trinity Site became part of what was then White Sands Proving Ground. The proving ground was established on July 9, 1945 as a test facility to investigate the new rocket technology emerging from World War n. The land, including Trinity Site and the old Alamogordo Bombing Range, came under the control of the new rocket and missile testing facility.
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 direc- tor, and Capt Howard Bush, base camp commander.
Back in Iowa, Cremeens created four 15-minutes reports on his visit which aired Sept. 24,26,27 and 29. A 15-minute composite was made and aired on the ABC Radio Networic. For this work Cremeens received a local Peabody Award for "Outstanding Reporting and Interpretation of the News."
[Photo - an interview ]
George Cremeens (left) interviews Dr. Kenneth Bainbridge, Trinity test director, at ground zero.
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 very hot in July on the Jornada del Muerto.
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 outwhat 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 (STEWS-PA)
White Sands Missile Range
White Sands Missile Range, N.M. 88002-5047
[Seal of the White Sands Missile Range]
"Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb" by Vincent Jones, Center of Military History, U.S. Army
"Trinity" by Kenneth Bainbridge, Los Alamos publication (LA-6300-H)
"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
Day One" by Peter Wyden, Simon and Schuster, 1984
"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 (LASL-79-78)
"Day of Trinity" by Lansing Lamont, Atheneum
"Radiological Survey and Evaluation of lhe Fallout Area from the Trinity Test: Chupadera Mesa and White Sands Missile Range. N.M." Los Alamos publication (LA-10256-MS)
"Life Magazine", August 20 and September 24, 1945
Time Magazine, August 13 and 20, 1945
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1995-674-816/25052
If you have comments or suggestions, Send e-mail to Ed Thelen
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June 6, 1999
