A short time ago, an american airplane dropped one bomb on hiroshima. It destroyed its usefulness to the enemy. That bomb has more power than 20,000 tons of tnt. With this bomb, we have now added a new and revolutionary increase in destruction. It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. What has been done is the greatest achievement of organized science in history. On august 6th, 1945, the United States detonated the First Nuclear weapon in history over the city of hiroshima, japan. Followed by a second detonation august 9th over the city of nagasaki. Six days later, japan surrendered, bringing in and to the second world war. I have received this afternoon a message from the japanese government by the secretary of on august 11th. I did this reply a full acceptance of the declaration. It specifies the Unconditional Surrender. Through the work of cspan city store, we will share stories of the people that contributed to this world altering event. We begin in new orleans at the National World war ii museum. We are here today on the road to tokyo exhibit which will take us through the war in the pacific and asia from 1941 to 1945. So one of the entering aspects, i think the most interesting aspect of the war in the pacific, is how quickly the turning point came in it. The bombing of pearl harbor was december of 1941. Just about six months later, after the japanese had run wild through the pacific and carved out a gigantic empire, the battle of midway was fought. At the battle of midway, the u. S. Dive bombers destroyed no fewer than four japanese aircraft carriers in a very brief a battle. That was a major portion of japans naval strength. Whatever chance that japan had of winning the pacific war probably disappeared in june of 1942. So that early into the war, from we might say the humiliation and the pain of pearl harbor to the big victory and midway. Just about six months. Its a big ocean, but thats a relatively brief time. So the war would go on for over three years after midway, from june of 1942 to august of 1945. I think most Japanese Naval officers, in particular, but offices across the board realize that the war was probably lost after midway. But they had taken this colossal gamble to launch a war in the United States. A country whose economy was ten times the size of their own. And really what was there to do now this early on into war with simply to hang tough and hope for some kind of miracle. I think that is what japanese officers in particular were doing. He was often coached in terms of loyalty to the emperor. We cannot let the emperor down but i think it was more about the Corporate Culture of the japanese officer corps, they really saw no way out other than to hang tough and realize its a big ocean, maybe something would happen, maybe the americans would tire the struggle, maybe we, japanese, could take such a toll on u. S. Casualties that an american president would be forced to end the war on some more favorable terms to japan but of course i was never to be. Clearly the Japanese Military power was broken but on individual islands that could defend tenaciously, studies were done casualty estimates, they were out of the ballpark and the hundreds of thousands. Unbeknownst to those who are predicting these casualties. A Top Secret Military program had been going on for sometime in the United States. Research and development of a sort that a never been seen before. And of course the invention of atomic weaponry is so the socalled Manhattan Project. Oppenheim or was the father of the atomic bomb. He directed the civilian laboratory in world war ii during the Manhattan Project. And under his leadership, he directed at nobel prizewinning scientists, engineers, military personnel and the civilians who worked on the atomic bomb project. In 1938 two german says it is working in berlin strassmann and high on bombarded this rump of material called uranium and they got a curious result. It kind of released a lot of heat and then it created a different element, an element that was farther down on the, you know, element table, table of animates. The word about this spread through the Nuclear Physics world like a forest fire that scientist had split the atom and that it was scientists working in nazi germany that had spread the item. So there was a lot of knowledge that the germans had split the adam, that england was working on their own splitting of the atom and harnessing down into a military weapon but it wasnt until after pearl harbor, the Manhattan Project was created and then a lot of resources under the control of the corps of engineers was devoted to create this new weapon. So leslie was appointed ahead of the Manhattan Project and he had just finished building the pentagon. Grows talked to different Physics Departments and asked people who would be a good leader and oppenheim are probably was not high on the list. Actually oppenheim or had not even been in charge of the Physics Department at berkeley before he was chosen to be ahead of the central laboratory. There was something about oppenheim that grows white. I think a couple of things. Groves saw that he was hungry. There were noble Prize Winners being considered but they had already accomplished nobel prize. Groves wanted somebody who was hungrier and would maybe work a little bit harder. And also on the train trip across the country, oppenheim was able to describe to groves what was needed to be done in terms of rose that a layman could understand. So grows picked oppenheim or. It was weird to locate the central laboratory, you could not have it in chicago because what happens if an accident happens . Or also the easy to breach the top security. You are walking down the street involved in it, a colleague who was not involved came up and said, hey, joe, what are you doing . Well, i mean, there would be an easy way to break top secret on that. So they looked around, they pick some places in the west. Oppenheim or had come to new mexico to recover from an illness when he was 18 years old and had fallen in love with new mexico. At one point he said that he wish he could marry the two loves of his life, physics and new mexico. Of course that is before he got married. I just wanna be clear about that. And this was an opportunity for him to do that so he showed groves some places around new mexico and the settled on this school in loss almost so after that was chosen in november of 1942, oppenheim are started recruiting people. But he couldnt tell them what he was doing. He said, you know, i would like for you to join me on this project but i cant really tell you what you are going to be doing but you are going to be in a beautiful place and its going to be essential for the war effort. And people who knew oppenheim or kind of knew they knew what the work was being done in germany, they knew that this was going to be something that was going to be of importance. So a lot of people did sign on, they were given an address in santa fe to report to. They went to that 109 plaza near santa fe. Here is your temporary security pass to get in. So we got in there, scientists assembled and march of 1943. They decided that they needed to do multiple ways of trying to make this weapon. And part of the problem was the nuclear material, the uranium and plutonium, it was miniscule, i mean plutonium is totally manmade and so a reactor and hampered, washington was created to manufacture this plutonium. Uranium is naturally made but the part that is used for bombs, its only about 1 of what occurs in nature. So how do you refine that out . How do you extract that 1 out . And that is why the Big Industrial complex at oak ridge was made, to kind of separate this isotopes of uranium from the rest of it to then assemble it in a big enough quantity that it can be used for a bomb. Oak Ridge National laboratory is a Major Research institution and oak Ridge National lab has been around since right after the second world war. This was set up originally in 1943 as clinton laboratories, did not have the name or courage at the time, and the purpose of clinton laboratories was to learn how to produce plutonium, which was a radioactive element of that can split and release fast amounts of energy just like forms through uranium can. But they did not know much about plutonium. It was artificial element. Had to be created by man and they knew nothing about the characteristics of plutonium. The building started in february of 1943. This facility, the graphite reactors as we know today, was started in the spring of 1943. Completed by november of 1943 and came online has the worlds first operating Nuclear Reactor and in this case, use specifically to produce tiny, tiny amounts of plutonium, which were recovered and then shipped up to the metallurgical laboratory, which was part of the Manhattan Project. In chicago so they could be characterized up there and other bits of plutonium that were produced here were shipped out to the laboratory new mexico where the bombs were actually designed and built by Robert Oppenheim or another famous physicists and ultimately tested out there in new mexico. So the purpose of oak Ridge National laboratory was originally to serve as a test reactor, which is where we are right now, to produce trace amounts of plutonium for Nuclear Weapons. And they realized, i say they, the government, realize fairly quickly back in 1942 90 43 that oak ridge and east tennessee were not the places to produce vast amounts of plutonium for weapons. Plutonium is a highly toxic element. I mean it is very, very coarse new janet. Very dangerous and not handle properly. East tennessee was not the place to be producing large amounts of plutonium. This reactor, here, i would not even call it a reactor, its called the pile, was designed simply to learn how to produce plutonium, not to produce large amounts of it. Eventually, after a year or two, they actually began to produce some enriched uranium over july 12th and that enriched uranium was carried out of here in a handbag on the train. It went out to los alamos, some lady was carrying it normally and likewise, small amounts of plutonium worship to chicago, where they could characterize it and now to los alamos where they could learn how to build a bomb using plutonium. So everything was coming in trainloads and trainloads but nothing as far as you can tell was going out. But it was a very ultra secret undertaking and no one knew what was going on except the managers until the bombs were actually dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki in japan in august of 1945. Recruitment was very challenging at times because they could not say a lot about what the end goal of the project was. So you had one of the women i profiled in my book was recruited literally right out of the house of her high school during her senior year. I interviewed other women who recruited out of college. I talked to a woman who was recruited out of a diner where she was working. So they went all over the place looking for smart, capable, young women who followed instructions very well. Who were very capable of following instructions. They also had to recruit a lot of men and construction wise, turn over was a very big challenge. They did not want to have a lot of turnover because of that slow production, that slowed the construction rates. So i mean if they just scoured everywhere getting as many people as they can from a military standpoint, certain soldiers who had a background in say engineering or science, might be literally taken right out of line as they were getting ready to, you know, aboard a ship to go overseas because they had a certain skill set and redirected to oak ridge or one of the other sites. So they were drilling down as much as they could but, yeah, a couple of my women literally right out of high school. If you had a Nobel Prize Winning scientist, he might live in one of the two or three bedroom houses that had been built depending on housing was this a sign depending on how many children you had, things of that nature so they might actually have a lovely house, standalone house. A 20 19, 20yearold young woman who was recruited out of high school or say a 22yearold woman recruited out of college would probably live in one of the dorms. There were dormitories and cafeterias and dances and in many ways, quite similar to college and she would have a roommate, and she would pay rent for dorm. If youre African American, you are living in the hot area. This was 16 foot by 16 foot, mostly plywood structure that you might share with three to four other people. In the case of katie, who was the African American woman that i profiled, because oak ridge was completely segregated and facilities were segregated, the kinds of jobs she was available to have more limited. She was not allowed to live with her husband, she was not allowed to bring her children with her and when i interviewed her i said, you know, what made you decide to do this . This is an incredibly trying situation that you are going through and she said, the pay i was getting was more than double the best i had ever been offered back in alabama so for her and her husband, it was definitely an economic motivation to endure what they were enduring at oak ridge as African Americans. There was a real need for bodies that was fueling this, so that is underlying all of this. A confidence just sort of absolute confidence. What went into organizing the Manhattan Project was something they referred to often as a compartment to biloxi. In other words, you do not need to know anything more than what you need to know to perform your job as well as you possibly can, okay . So you might be sitting next to somebody who has a different job than you do. You do not know what they know. They dont know what you know and you too dont know what this other guy knows. You guys all know the minimum that you need to know to perform your job and that is it. So for example, some of these women were operating electromagnetic separation call you shawns, they called them. This involved operating various knobs and dials to keep a specific needle within a certain range to get very, very basic. And this is exactly how they were trained. When they would talk to me, this is exactly how they were trained. You know the needle goes this way, turn the not this way. The needle goes that way, turn the dial that way. If this sparking happenings, you know, call the supervisor. That was it. They did not know what the machines were for, they did not know what the and project and project of the product of the project was. They knew everything they needed to know to perform their specific task and that was something that was throughout the Manhattan Project. You are only given enough information to do what you needed to do to the best of your ability. There was a level, i mean most of the people, obviously this varied from person to person. Most people had a certain level of curiosity. But it was also drilled into than that if youve got to curious and ask too many questions that you could lose your job. So people did not get to curious that often. Some people did. Many people i interviewed sought people get physically taken out of work in the middle of the day with zero explanation. They never saw them again. So, you know, there is this idea that im not supposed to ask any questions so im not going to ask any questions. There was also a fair amount of what i might call self censorship that happened. Everybody was told this was a very important project for the war. That is something they were told. They were not told what the project was, but it was very important to the war effort. It was also important that they did not talk about what they did. If youve ever talked to people who lived through world war ii, everyone knew someone who is await fighting. Most people knew someone who had died. So the idea that they were supposed to. If they were told they were not supposed to talk about things because it was good for the war effort, that was enough for a lot of people. So thats what i mean when i talk about self censorship. Nobody wanted to be the person who inadvertently or accidentally caused a problem with the war effort. Or let out a piece of information even though they didnt know what it meant. Nobody wanted to give me that person. No one wanted to cause a problem for what they were trying to accomplish. September 1940, the Martin Company was commission to build a plant specifically at fort crook. By june of 1942, the plant was in full production. That production continued with the b 26 martin marauder. The plant constructed over 1500 of these medium sized bombers to help contribute to the war effort and all theaters of the war. It was then after that that Production Assembly for the b 29 was then put into place. How this fits into the war history is the b 29 became the iconic bomber of the war in the pacific. Designed to carry more destruction and higher, faster and farther than any bomber before. The b 29 pointed at the heart of japan. Those particular airplanes were manufactured at the martin nebraska bomber plant were colonel to bits personally came and chose is bomber that would eventually be named no lead a after his mother. To become the first b 29, first aircraft, to drop an atomic bomb. We are at the National Museum of the u. S. Air forces air power gallery at the tail end of the world war ii story. The first thing we are going to look at is marked three atomic weapon, more widely known as the fat man atomic bomb. The reason this is significant is because it is a sign or signal of the beginning of the atomic age. The end of world war ii. And its a marker of the supremacy of American Military and scientific