Between Heaven and Hell

by Alan Rimmer

  He married Adele, who lived next door but one in the tight huddle of terraced houses that formed a graceful perspective down to the sea at the bottom of the road. They married in Queensborough, had two children and eventually moved to Croydon. Adele’s clever husband was set for a distinguished academic career, but the war intervened. Penney joined a loose collection of government scientific workers, and was “borrowed” by the Admiralty to investigate a subject about which little was known: the nature of blast waves. As part of that work he made a study of underwater blast effects which was eventually used in designing the floating ‘Mulberry harbours’ to be used later in the ‘D’ Day landings.

  He also had another job: under cover of working as an air raid warden, Penney was tasked by the War Office with finding out the size of the Luftwaffe’s bombs by studying the effects on the gutted remains of the buildings they destroyed. Penney’s detailed calculations enabled Army ordnance chiefs to work out the probable performance of Britain’s own bombs and missiles. There was a gruesome side to his work, however: he was required to work alongside the rescuers who brought the tragic victims of the bombings to the mortuaries. In this way Penney discovered among other things the extraordinary resistance of the human body to blast waves.

  By the time that he was sent to Los Alamos the young scientist was the world authority on the effects of high explosives and blast waves on buildings and people. From backroom boy in an obscure government department, he was suddenly one of the foremost scientists of the times, and he was in distinguished company indeed. With him on his first trip to America on the converted luxury liner Andes which set off from Liverpool bound for America in late 1943, was a galaxy of scientific stars including James Chadwick, discoverer of the neutron, Rudolf Peierls, Egon Bretscher, George Placzek and Klaus Fuchs.

  From New York the group, for security reasons, was separated and despatched by various modes of transport, first to Washington to be briefed on security by General Leslie Groves, the man in overall charge of the Manhattan Project. Groves (with good reason, as it turned out) deeply distrusted many of the British contingent. But for some reason he took an immediate liking to Penney. Physically they were very similar, both bulky figures with heavy facial features and a slightly rumpled look. In personality, however, they couldn’t have been more different. Penney, quiet and unassuming, was the antithesis of Groves’ bombastic deportment.

  Groves appears to have recognised in Penney a kindred spirit. They both had an absolute commitment to their work and were impatient with colleagues who found the task distasteful. From their first meetings, Groves had marked Penney down as being only one of a handful of scientists he would allow into the bomb project’s innermost councils.

  Los Alamos with its alien landscape and dizzying altitude was in stark contrast to Britain’s rain-soaked climate, and most of the scientists took to it with relish. Once comfortably billeted (they were overwhelmed by the plentiful supply of foodstuffs of all varieties) they threw themselves into intensive rounds of meetings and tutorials, punctuated by lively discussion groups. Music evenings and exuberant parties where alcohol and dancing flowed with equal verve were also a feature.

  Christmas in Los Alamos brought with it a white blanket of snow turning the high desert shrub into a Hollywood movie set. Tinsel and other festive paraphernalia festooned every home while long icicles hung from rustic cabins giving everything a magical feel. The air was cold and crisp and the snow-capped mountains in the distance dazzled in the gorgeous sunsets. Poised as they were on the precipice of creating a monstrous, almost satanic force of nature, this outlandish and exquisite Christmas must have been a poignant counterpoint.

  Penney seemed to come alive in the intellectually-charged climate and was a favourite among the American scientists for his easy-going manner and the quiet authority he showed when discussing the nature of blast waves. He stunned them with graphic descriptions of the worst effects of the bombings, all delivered in a matter-of-fact style, but with a glint in his eye and a gleaming smile. His audience was apparently so impressed that one scientist, Victor Weisskopf, nicknamed Penney “the smiling killer.” It was a moniker that stuck.

  It didn’t go unnoticed that the quiet Englishman had a new, harder edge when he returned to Los Alamos after his compassionate trip to England. Gone was the shyness he displayed on first arrival, and his famous smile was not quite the same. His eyes had acquired a steely quality, and there was a firmer set to his shoulders.

  Penney chose not to reveal his wife’s mental trauma, saying only that she had been killed in an air raid (Mrs Penney in fact died from pneumonia on April 18, 1945 at Warlingham Hospital). Penney brought the reality of modern warfare home to the Americans at Los Alamos who had so far only viewed events from afar. And Penney’s eyewitness account of the devastation wrought by Hitler’s latest terror weapons the V1 and V2 bombs galvanised them more than anything. These futuristic weapons with a payload of 2,000lbs of high explosive arrived completely without warning and, as Penney was keen to point out, there was no defence against it. Imagine if it could be armed with an atomic weapon!

  At one colloquium Penney announced the results of his calculations on the impact of an A-bomb. A hush descended on the room as Penney, with a beaming smile, described how a city of 300,000 people would be reduced to a sink for disaster relief, bandages and hospitals. One of the people most impressed by Penney’s intensity was Philip Morrison, a 27-yr-old physicist. He described Penney’s ‘nervous smile’ as he discussed casualty numbers. “It was reality,” recalled Morrison. “We knew it, but we couldn’t see it. But Penney could.”

  Just before Christmas 1944 Penney produced a memorandum in which he discusses in chilling detail the effects of the “blast resisting characteristics of German towns and those of Japanese towns.” After calculating the relative heights for the most destructive results on civilian housing from the “Gadget”, the code name for the atomic bomb, Penney moves briskly on to what is considered to be only two alternatives: a) complete destruction, or b) severe but not irreparable damage. He makes it clear in his memo, only recently declassified, which was the favourable option:

  Opinion in England has recently changed from requirement b) to requirement a). This is a major change in policy…and details are being sought from England on the current opinion of the relative values of A and B damage caused in German towns by H.E. (high explosive) blast.

  Penney then sets out the reason for the shift in policy: the V1 attacks on London, which of course were responsible for the devastating impact on his own life. Penney, who refers to the onslaught as “robot attacks”, writes:

  (these) have forced a large scale systematic repairing schedule, which has proved that B damage is more readily repairable than previously thought. This is confirmed by cover photographs of Hamburg and other cities showing that really large areas of B damage have been restored with incredible rapidity.

  Total destruction, or A damage is Penney’s preferred option, and he describes in grisly detail the effects of blasts on various structures ranging from three storey blocks of flats in Hamburg, to the wooden (but earthquake-resistant) structures of Yokohama. Calculations are made about how many pounds per square inch of blast pressure it would take to cause family homes to implode, tear concrete off the walls, collapse shelters (where people might be sheltering) and cause wooden structures to self-combust over varying distances. But where Penney really gets into his stride is in his calculations concerning the “fire producing” qualities of the bomb:

  The explosion of a gadget either in Germany or Japan, causing large areas of A damage will almost certainly result in fires. The large number of casualties associated with A damage may well lead to such confusion that the critical incubation period of the fires is passed unobserved. Thereafter the fire guards are useless, and only the Fire Force counts.

  In other words the more people you kill, the less people left to put out the fires. This, according to Penney, would leave only a handful of pro
fessionals (Fire Force) to deal with the resulting firestorm. But Penney had a plan to deal with them as well: lure the professional firefighters into the radioactive contaminated area and then firebomb them in a follow up attack to finish them off. “This is attractive and realistic”, he writes. One can imagine the chill descending over the assembled scientists as Penney (probably with a smile) made his presentation.

  When Neils Bohr later produced a sketch of what looked like a heavy water reactor and said it had been designed by the German Physicist Werner Heisenberg proving the Nazis were on to the possibility of nuclear fission, there was a ripple of panic, and thenceforth activity increased immeasurably. And as their work gradually bore fruit security became tighter than ever. Groves, who had his spies everywhere, was suspicious of everyone. Passes were checked daily and double banks of barbed wire surrounded the more sensitive areas.

  Penney had become Groves’ main intelligence source among the British group. Two scientists on the British team were later to complain about Penney’s zeal in hunting down potential spies. Polish physicist Joseph Rotblat, who quit the Manhattan Project after it became clear the Nazis would be defeated, spoke of his bitterness about a large trunk containing his precious possessions which disappeared on his way home: he was convinced it had been taken by the Los Alamos security people.

  The incident followed amazing rumours about Rotblat, who had aroused suspicions when he decided to take flying lessons on his days off. He had apparently talked to Penney and others about enlisting in the RAF and joining Polish Spitfire squadrons that had helped win the Battle of Britain. For some reason a bizarre idea went round that he was planning to parachute into Russia to help the communist cause. (Hitler’s deputy Rudolph Hess’s parachute drop into Scotland in the crazy hope securing a peace deal was big news at the time.) Rotblat was closely questioned before he was allowed to return to the UK.

  Michael Moore, assistant to Sir James Chadwick, the leader of the British mission, complained he was also given a security grilling. Moore, who was born in Cork, said officials became suspicious after he had spoken to Penney and others, in nostalgic terms about his Irish roots. Later he was interviewed by security officials and shown documentary evidence, obtained from British police, that one of his distant relatives had been a member of the IRA. What upset Moore most was that members of his family back in Liverpool had been visited by police detectives and given a rough time as they quizzed them about their political affiliations.

  The experience still rankled 40 years later when Moore discussed it for the first time during an interview at his home in St. Helens, a town 10 miles from Liverpool. “I always blamed Penney,” he said ruefully. “I should never have confided in him. The experience left a bad taste in my mouth.”

  Whether Penney was responsible is debateable. But what is certain is that around this time he was moved up several tiers in the Los Alamos hierarchy to consultant to the Director of the atomic test programme, Kenneth Bainbridge. He was put in charge of measuring the blast waves from the test explosion, which was given the codename Trinity.

  Penney was also afforded entry into the Manhattan Project’s inner circle, the seven-man Target Committee set up to decide which Japanese cities to bomb after the successful completion of Trinity. He was given the task of deciding the height of the blast so as to afford maximum damage to Hiroshima, which was the primary target. Nagasaki would be drawn from a short-list of several other cities at a later date.

  The youthful Englishman, still only 34, was also given the considerable accolade of being the only British scientist chosen to observe the combat use of the weapon. To prepare him for the role, arrangements were made for Penney to be given a grandstand view of the Trinity test explosion from one of the observer aircraft.

  TRINITY

  Monday July 16, 1945 was the day earmarked for the historic testing of the world’s first atomic bomb. The huge spherical ‘gadget’ was hoisted to the top of a 100-foot tower in a remote corner of the Alomogordo air base, 230 miles from Los Alamos. The last minute checks were satisfactory; everything was ready for the show. But on Sunday night the skies darkened and thunder rolled in the surrounding mountains. Then it started to rain. There was no sleep that night for anyone.

  By 2am the weather began to improve, but it was decided to postpone the shot from the planned 4am to 5.30. After receiving weather reports, the decision was made. Unfortunately for Penney the foul weather had moved to Albuquerque air base where he was waiting in full flying gear to take off in one of the observer planes.

  As news flashed through that the shot would go ahead at 5.30am, a simultaneous decision was made to ground the bombers. It was a huge disappointment, especially for Penney who had been intimately involved in the last-minute preparations. But it was a wise move as there was a considerable risk of the observer aircraft becoming lost in the heavy cloud cover and straying over ground zero. A rueful Penney later admitted to Chadwick, “We wouldn’t have had a chance.”

  At exactly 5.29 and 45 seconds the brightest light in the universe bathed the area in an unearthly brilliance. The steel tower that held the bomb didn’t just vaporise – it vanished. In the command bunkers, the observers lay face down on the ground, their feet facing toward ground zero. As soon as the light went they stood and turned toward the explosion. Even at two miles distant, some were knocked off their feet by the shock wave. Witnesses to nuclear explosions, the ‘destruction of the building blocks of the universe’, have been moved to express it in almost religious terms. Oppenheimer forever now to be known as the ‘Father of the Atom Bomb’ remarked: “I am become death, the destroyer of world”, a passage from the sacred Hindu text the Bhagavad Gita.

  One of the military witnesses, Major General Thomas Farrell, clearly in awe of the moment, desperately tried to find the right words: “The effects could well be called unprecedented, magnificent, beautiful, stupendous, and terrifying,” he wrote in his report to Groves. “The lighting effects beggared description…it was golden, purple, violet, grey and blue…” He continued in a like vein for some time. The more phlegmatic Groves replied with a single word: “noted.”

  Other observers and correspondents have been using equally florid language to describe the bubbling horror of nuclear explosions ever since. Those without quite the same literary bent, or foreknowledge of what to expect, reacted rather differently. A humble G.I. fled in terror from his dugout screaming: “The long-hairs have let it get away from them…” Scientists, technicians and other observers displayed varying degrees of fear and elation. As the shock wave rolled over their heads, many sprang from their bunkers and performed an impromptu conga beneath the spreading effulgence of the world’s first mushroom cloud.

  Others far away also noted the momentous event. The flash of light was seen in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Silver City and El Paso. It was so intense a blind girl 50 miles away asked, “What was that?”

  With secrecy still paramount, Groves issued a cover story to stop word of the new super-weapon reaching the outside world. The local Santa Fe radio announced there had been an explosion in an ammunitions dump; for chance observers further away, army intelligence prepared stories blaming the strange event on an earthquake or a plane crash. Groves manage to insert an item in the local paper about a fictitious rail passenger who described “the biggest firework display I have ever seen…”

  But at Los Alamos, and very much against the wishes of Groves, there was uninhibited joy. As news of the success of Trinity started to filter through, people took to the streets gathering excitedly; when it was confirmed, the dancing and cheering began. A group of technicians’ wives went out bashing pots and kettles; people sat on the hoods of cars drinking and laughing, while scores formed congas that snaked in and out of the houses. Parties sprang up all over town.

  Later drunken revellers stood in swaying groups as they waited for the buses carrying the dishevelled scientists to return home from Alamogordo. When they arrived they were so exhausted many wished for noth
ing but a shower and bed. But others simply couldn’t sleep. They barged into communal areas wearing huge grins and flashing ‘V’ for victory signs.

  The mood of euphoria was replaced by more sober thoughts as the sheer scale of the explosion began to sink in. Early reports said it was equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT and that it had caused a vast black cloud of radioactive fallout. This had drifted over the desert mesas and contaminated huge areas up to 100 miles away. The silent aftermath of the detonation was said to be punctuated by staccato gunfire as specially trained GIs fanned out into the desert to destroy a herd of antelope driven crazy by radiation burns.

  Penney was one of the first to be taken into the still smoking blast area to check on vital monitoring instruments he had set up at varying distances from ground zero. Groves marvelled at the simplicity of some of the equipment the scientist had devised: wooden boxes with different sized holes drilled into them and covered with paper membranes; toothpaste tubes filled with differing amounts of water. From the way the membranes had been punctured, and the toothpaste tubes bent, Penney could calculate the force of blast wave and even its shape. His calculations were often more accurate than the expensive electronic equipment devised by American scientists.

  With the success of the Trinity explosion, the military planners got down to deciding which of the cities on the Japanese mainland should join Hiroshima as the luckless recipient of this new and terrifying weapon. There was never any doubt in their minds that the A-bomb should be used on Japan. Reports of the fanatical and suicidal defence by Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima and Okinawa were convincing proof of the level of opposition the Allies would be likely to face in the event of an attack on the mainland. Hundreds of thousands of American lives would be lost before Japan surrendered.