Its a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. What has been done is the greatest achievement of organized science in history. In a 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 an end to the second world war. I have received this afternoon message from the japanese government and applied to the message forded to the secretary on august 11th. I deem this reply a full acceptance of the potsdam declaration which specifies the Unconditional Surrender of japan. Through the work of cspans cities tour well share stories of the people that contributed to this worldaltering event. We begin in new orleans at the National World war ii museum. Were here today on the road to tokyo exhibit which is going to take us through the war in the pacific and asia from 1941 to 19 45. So one of the interesting aspect, 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 194 is and just about six months later after the japanese had run wild through the pacific the battle of the midway was fought and at battle of midway the u. S. Dive bombers destroyed no fewer than four japanese air carriers in a very, very basketweave battle, a major portion of japans naval strength and whatever chance japan had of winning the war tis appeared in june of 1942. That early into the war what what we might say the pain and humiliation of pearl harbor and the big victory at midway. Its a big ocean but thats a relatively basketweave time so the war would go on over three years from june of 1942 to august of 1945. I think most Japanese Naval officers in particular but overs across the board realized that the war was probably lost after midway, but they had taken this colossal gbl to launch a war on 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 in the war but simply to hang tough and hope for some kind of miracle, and i think thats what japanese officers in particular were doing. It was often couched in terms of loyalty to the emperor. We cant let the emperor down but i think it was more about the Corporate Culture of the Japanese Army corps. They had to hang tough, its a big ocean. Maybe something would happen, maybe the americans would tire of the struggle. Maybe wee, the japanese, could take such a toll of u. S. Casualties that han american president would be forced to to end the war on some more favorable terms to japan but, of course, that was never to be. Clearly the Japanese Military power was broken, but on individual islands they could defend tenaciously. Studies were done, casualties estimates. They were out of the ballpark in the hundreds of thousands. Unbeknownst to most of those who were predicting these casualties, a stop secret military program had been going on for some time in the United States, a research and Development Program of a sort that had never been seen before, and it was, of course, the invention of atomic weaponry so the socalled Manhattan Project. Well, jim Robert Oppenheimer was the father of the director bomb. He directed the civilian laboratory at los alamos in 1942 during the Manhattan Project, and under his leadership he directed nobel prizewinning scientists, engineers, military personnel and the civilians who worked on the atomic bomb project in los alamos. In 1938 two german physicists working in berlin, strassemann and haun bombarded this lump of material called uranium and got a curious result. It kind of released a lot of heat, and then it created a a different element, element that was farther down on on, you know, the element table, table of elements. The word about this spread through the Nuclear Physics world like a like a forest fire that that scientists had split the atom and that it was scientists working in nazi germany that had split the atom so there was a lot of knowledge that the germans had split the atom, that england was working on their own splitting of the atom and harnessing that into a military weapon but it wasnt until after pearl harbor that the Manhattan Project was created and a lot of resources under the control of the army corps of engineer was devote to create this this new weapon. So leslie r. Groves was appointed the head of the Manhattan Project and he had just finished building the pentagon. Groves talked to different Physics Departments and asked people who would be a good leader, and oppenheimer probably was not high on the list. Actually oppenheimer had not even been in charge of his Physics Department at berkeley before he was chosen to be the head of the central laboratory. The there was something about pooy that groves like. A couple of things, groves saw that he was hungry. There were nobel Prize Winners being considered but they had already accomplished the nobel prize. Groefz wanted somebody who was hungrier and would make work a little bit harder and also on a train trip across the country oppy was able to describe to groves what was needed to be done in terms that groves and a layman could understand, so so groves picked oppy. The other thing is where to locate the central laboratory. You couldnt have it in chicago because what happens if an accident happened or also it would be easy to to breach the top security, you know, if youre walking down a street involved in it, a colleague who wasnt involved came up and said, hey, joe, what are you doing . Well, i mean there there would be an easy way to break top secrecy on that so they looked around and picked some places in the west. Oppy had come to new mexico to to recover from an illness when he was 18 years old and had fallen in love with with new mexico. At one point he said that he wished he could marry the two loves of his life, physics and new mexico. Thats before he got married. I just want to be clear about that, and this was an opportunity for him to do that. So he he showed groves some places around new mexico and they settled on this boys school at los alamos and so after that was chosen in november of 1942 oppy started recruiting people and couldnt tell them what he was doing. He said you know i would like you to join me on this project and i cant tell what you youre going to be doing. Youre going to be in a pete aboutful place essential to the war effort. People who new oppy new the work that was being done in germany. They knew that this was going to be something that was going to be important, so a lot of people did sign on. They were given an address in santa fe to report to. They went to that 109 east palace address right near the peraza in santa fe and then were told youre not quite there. Its another 40 miles. Heres your temporary security pass to get into los alamos so he got in there. Scientists assembled in march of 1943. They decided that there were that they needed to do multiple ways of trying to make this weapon. And part of the problem was the nuclear material, the uranium or plutonium, it was miniscule. There wash it is plutonium is totally manmade, and so a a reactor in hannaford, washington was created to then manufacture this plutonium. Uranium is naturally made, but the part thats used for bombs is only about 1 of what occurs in in nature, so how do you refine that out . How do you extract that 1 out, and thats why the the Big Industrial complex at oac ridge was made to kind of separate this isotope of uranium from the rest of it and then assemble it in a big enough quantity that it could be used as 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. Didnt have the name oak ridge at the time and the purpose of clinton laboratories was to learn how to produce plutonium which was a radioactive element that could split and release vast amounts of energy just like some forms of uranium can, but they didnt know much about plutonium. It was an artificial element and 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 reactor as we know it today was started in the spring of 1943, completed by november of 1943 and came online as the worlds first operating nuclear reactor, and in this case used 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 that they could can be characterized up there and other bits of plutonium that were produced here were shipped out to Los Alamos Laboratory in new mexico where the bombs were actually designed and build by Robert Oppenheimer and other famous physicists and ultimately tested out there in new mexico, so the purpose of oak Ridge National laboratory was originally to serve of as a test reactor which is where we are right now to produce trace amounts of plutonium for a nuclear weapon, and they realized i say they, the government realized fairly quickly back in 1942 and 43 that oak ridge and east tennessee were not the places to produce vast amounts of plutonium for a we op. Plutonium is a highly toxic element. I mean, its very, very carcinogenic, very dangerous if not handled properly, and east tennessee was not the place to be producing large amounts of plutonium. This reactor, here, it wasnt even called a reactor. It was called a pile. It 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 at y12 and that enriched uranium was carried out of here in a handbag, in a valise. On the train it went out to los alamos, i mean, Somebody Just carrying it normally and likewise small amounts of plutonium were shipped up to chicago where they could characterize it and out to los alamos where they could learn how to build a bomb using plutonium so everything was coming in, train loads and train loads but nothing as far as anybody could tell was going out, but it was a 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 couldnt 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 halls of her high school during her senior year. I interviewed other women who were 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 constructionwise turnover was a very big challenge. They did not want to have a lot of turnover because that slowed production. That slowed the construction rate. So, i mean, 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, board a ship to go overseas because they had a certain skillset. And redirected to oak ridge or one of the other sites. So they were they were drilling down as much as they could. But yeah, a couple of my women literally right out of right out of high school. If you had a Nobel Prize Winning scientist he might live in one of the two or threebedroom houses that had been built, depending on housing was assigned 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, in many ways quite similar to college. She would have a roommate and she would pay rent for her dorm. If you were africanamerican you were living in the hutment area. So these were 16 foot by 16 foot mostly ply Wood Structures that you might share with three to four other people. In the case of katie, who was the africanamerican woman that i profiled, because oak ridge was completely segregated and facilities were segregated, the kinds of jobs she was available to have were 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 youre going through. And she said the pay i was getting was more than double the best i had ever been offered back in auburn, alabama. So for her and her husband it was definitely an economic motivation to endure what they were enduring at oak ridge as africanamericans. There was a real need for bodies that was fueling this. So thats underlying all of this. But competence. Just sort of absolute competence. What went into organizing the Manhattan Project was something they referred to often as a compartmentability. In other words you dont need to know anything more than than what you need to know to perform your job as well as you possibly can. So you might be sitting next to somebody who has a different job than you do. You dont know what they know. They dont know what you know. And you two dont know what this other guy knows. You guys all know the minimum that you need to know to perform your job. And thats it. So, for example, some of these women were operating elect ro magnetic separation calutrons 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. The needle goes this way, turn the knob this way, the needle goes that way, turn the notary public that way. If this sparking happens, you know, call the supervisor. That was it. They didnt know what the machines were for. They didnt know what the end project of the end product of the project was. They just knew everything they needed to know to be able to perform their specific task. And that was something that was throughout the Manhattan Project. You were only given enough information to do what you needed to do to the best of your ability. Most of the people, this obviously varied from person to person, most people had a certain level of curiosity but it was also drilled into them that if you got too curious and asked too many questions you could lose your job. To people didnt get too curious that often. Some people did. Many people i interviewed saw people get physically taken out of work in the middle of the day with zero explanation, and never saw them again. So, you know, there was 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 selfcensorship that happened. Everybody was told this was a very important project for the war. That is something they were told. They werent told what the project was but they said it was very important to the war effort and it was important that they didnt talk about what they did. And pretty much i mean, if youve ever talked to people who lived through world war ii, everybody knew somebody who was away 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 that was good for the war effort that was enough for a lot of people. So there was thats what i mean when i talk about selfcensorship. 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, you know, nobody wanted to be that person who actually, you know, caused a problem for what they were trying to accomplish. In september 1940 the Martin Company was commissioned to build a plant specifically at aufitt field fort crook, by june of 1942 the plant was in full production. That production continued with the effort and all theaters of the war. It was then after that, that Production Assembly for the b29 was then put into place. How this fits into i would say the par history is the b29 became the iconic bomb r of war in the pacific. Designed to carry more destruction, and carry it higher, faster and farther than nyb29s were like artillery, pointed at the heart of japan. Those particular airplanes were manufactured at the martin, nebraska bomber plant where colonel tibbetts personally came and chose his bomber that would eventually be named enola gay after his mother to be the first aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb. Were 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 were going to look at is mark iii atomic weapon, more wide le known as the fat man atomic bomb. The reason this is significant is because it is a sign or a 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 and Industrial Power at midcentury in the end of world war ii. The reason its called fat man is obvious. Its a big, round bomb. Its shape is mainly because of its method. Its round because its a socalled implosion weapon. Theres a sphere of explosives that compress a smaller sphere of fissile material that results in an atomic explosion. The weapon that we have on display is real. It is a mark iii atomic weapon. It has been restored to look like the fat man bomb that was dropped on august the 9th, 1945. This was one of many mark iiis that were manufactured after the war and up until about 1949. They were withdrawn from service in 1950. This was an iteration of that first design used during the war and of course Nuclear Weapons design progressed very quickly after the war and so this was obsolete to within only a couple of years after it was designed and built. Thereafter the shape just was stored. It was displayed for the first time in a museum in 1965. And we restored it in 2005 so that it looked like the fat man that was used at the end of world war ii. The lettering on the front is a curiosity. We think it stands for joint army, navy combined foulup. These guys that put these things together were young men doing a tough job and a lot of times youll see nose art with, you know, words and pictures and so on that, you know, are kind of nonstandard and i guess you could say this is one of them. And of course the other little stencil fm inside the little bomb shape is obviously fat man. So the stuff above it is about army, Navy Cooperation to get a tough job done and done well. Here at the museum we want people to think about what happened at hiroshima, nagasaki and why, after all 80,000 lives were snuffed out in a millisecond. So on august 6th an atomic bomb was detonated over hiroshima, three days later a second atomic bomb of a different mechanical type detonated over the city of nagasaki. We have the flight record. The pilot of the enola gay dropped the bomb on the hiroshima. The logbook from the enola gay. A different way of computing the aircrafts true speed, essential to flight and bombing. As we walk over here, we have examples of glass bottles that were taken from the wreckage of n nagasaki, you can see the intense heat, literally melting glass not so far from ground zero. Nagasaki was not the original target of bomb number two, another city had been chosen but the cloud cover was too difficult to drop the bomb on it and so the mission was changed to nagasaki and i often think of ive been saying this to studen students for 30 years, the unluckiest city on earth, by an accident of weather and a bit of chance nagasaki received the second atom ic bombing. A battleship missouri, 53,000 ton flagship of Admiral Halseys third fleet, becomes the scene of an unforgettable ceremony marking the complete and formal surrendering of japan. In the bay of tokyo itself the United States destroyer buchanan brings to witness the final capitulation. The fleet welcome mcarthur and his chief of staff aboard. Admiral nemits escorts him to the veranda deck. Its sunday, september 2nd, 1945. Right now we are on the 01 level of the battleship missouri, known as the veranda deck but thanks to the events of september 2nd, 1945. We call this deck the surrender deck. This is where september 2nd, 45 the japanese signed the surrender. The ship looked different a big difference, the nice shady canopy overhead was not installed and the turret behind me was rotated 30 degrees starboard to make more room on the deck. If you looked around above us that day you would have seen thousands of the members of missouris crew, crews from other ships hanging onto anything that they could to get a glimpse of what was about to occur on this deck. At 9 00 a. M. In the morning when the surrender ceremony was starting members of the japanese delegation were making their way on board, 11 of them made their way up on the ladder behind me and on this deck at 9 02 in the tomorrow, the general and Admiral Halsey descended from above to start the ceremony. After a few opening words the first person to sign the surrender documents would have been mr. Shigamitsu, and next was general mazu, and the third was general Douglas Mcarthur himself. He signed as supreme allied commander, the fourth person was to sign admiral nemits. China, great britain, australia, canada, france, netherlands and new zealand each in churn. There are two copies of the surrender documents, one was kept by the United States and one was to be kept by japan. So we do not display the originals for obvious reasons. We have replicas on board. The originals are in the National Archives in washington, d. C. And in a war museum in tokyo. We also have a replica of one of macarthurs pens. He used six pens to sign the documents. Sounds strange. He only had to sign his name twice, one on each copy. He chose to use six pens for douglas, mac, and arthur, and he did this for a very simple reason and one that we do today, when lawmakers sign important laws, he wanted to give these pens away as souvenirs. Following the last signature mcarthur stepped up to the microphone and said simply these proceedings are closed. Gave a signal, and above aircraft flew in formation. From 9 02 to the end at 9 25, 23 minutes, thats all it took to end the bloodiest conflict in human history. At the end of the war the United States would emerge as the worlds First Nuclear power. Soon afterward the soviet union would join the arms race, which led to a protracted cold war with each country adding to their nuclear arsenals. In the United States testing of these weapons would take place at a site just outside of las vegas. The National Atomic Testing Museum shares how the atomic age, which began on august 6th, 1945, would capture the imagination of americans. The museum focuses on atomic testing, over a period from the early 1950s through about 1992, and to me the interesting story occurs right after world war ii. In between that time of the development of the cold war and there was quite a question of what to do with Nuclear Weapons. President truman worked hard to develop some sort of International Control or consensus over Nuclear Weapons but he was dismayed at that pretty early on. But what truman did, he assured that the department of defense was not in charge of Nuclear Weapons. He established the Atomic Energy commission which is actually a civilian organization and they were always the ones in charge of Nuclear Weapons and this is a big surprise to people, the military in those early days couldnt even get their hands on the Nuclear Weapons. When there were tests of Nuclear Weapons that was overseen by the Atomic Energy commission, not the military. The test site was established in 19 51. There was no state side testing after world war ii, of course the first atomic bomb was exploded in the trinity site in new mexico but all the tests after the war were done in the pacific, which was a big logistical nightmare, cost thousands to millions of dollars to move scientists and equipment out to the pacific. They needed something closer and stateside. It was rather controversial, actually, to establish a test site in the United States and it wasnt until the cold war started heating up and the war with korea actually started that the president conceded to establishing a test site within the United States. They looked at all sorts of different areas around the country and this was a very attractive area. It was actually the old las vegas gunnery and bombing range from world war ii days. It was a huge area where they actually tested bomber crews would train and drop bombs and do all sorts of gunnery tests. It laid pretty enactive after world war ii and became an ideal place as far as consideration for a very remote location to explode Nuclear Weapons. Over a period of years there were 928 Nuclear Tests at the test site, 100 of those were aboveground or atmospheric tests and the other 828 were actually done underground in tunnels. The socalled atomic age had a great effect in pop culture, not only in the 50s, but after that, and it was actually went back earlier than that. Many people scifi buffs will tell you that the term atomic bombs, atomic was actually very prevalent in the 1920s and 30s in the flash gore and buck rogers radio series, it was twill a concept in Science Fiction of uses of atomic bombs but they had no concept of what an atomic bomb really was until after it was developed and used in world war ii but in the 1950s, when they started testing atomic weapons right here at the Nevada Test Site they really came into Popular American culture, you can see examples of, you know, the atomic cereal box and all sorts of icons of the atomic image and kids toys, and chemistry sets and this sort of thing. In las vegas it was just overwhelming because they twhald an atomic bomb beauty contest at one point in the 1950s. Every casino and lounge and bar had their own atomic cocktail recipe book. It was quite the rage and in those early days of the 1950s when they were doing aboveground testing here at the test site, as i said, you could go outside a local casino at a given time and actually see a Mushroom Cloud out in the distance. It actually got to the point, by the mid to late 50s that there were so many aboveground tests that the Atomic Energy commission started to advertise in advance so that local people and tourists planning their itinerary could come to las vegas and plan on witnessing or observing a Nuclear Blast because las vegas was only about 60 some miles from the test site. There are many believers that Nuclear Testing led to help keeping the peace of the cold war. Cspans cities tour travels the country exploring the american story with the support of local cable providers we bring you the history and literary life of a different city on book tv and American History tv. To watch videos of any of the places weve been, go to kr, cspan. Org cities tour and follow us on tour at cspan cities. Created by americas Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan 3. Tonight we visit Independence National historical park in philadelphia to see congress hall, the u. S. Congress met in the building from 1790 to 1800 and ratified the bill of rights there. Our guide is National Parks Service Ranger matthew iful. Enjoy American History tv every weekend on cspan3. Every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan3 go inside a Different College classroom and hear about topics ranging from the american revolution. Civil rights and u. S. President s. To 9 11. Thanks for your patience and for logging in to class. With most College Campuses closed due to the impact of the coronavirus watch professors transfer teaching to a virtual setting to engage with their students. Gorbachev did most of the week to change the soviet union but reagan met him halfway. Reagan encouraged him, reagan supported him. Freedom of the press which well get to later, i should just mention madison originally called it freedom of the use of the press and it is
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