The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II

by Denise Kiernan

  And what do you think? the Engineer asked.

  Holly paused. “What a question to answer!” he later wrote, thinking of his “pacifist Mennonite ancestors.”

  “My vote is with the majority,” he told the Engineer. “It seems to me that as the war stands the bomb should be used, but no more drastically than needed to bring surrender.”

  ★ ★ ★

  The same day the Engineer met with Holly, a young courier, Lt. Nick Del Genio, left CEW with briefcase in hand, and boarded a train. His coffee-cup cargo contained the last bit of Product the Gadget would need.

  For the last year, roughly 22,000 people had been working at Y-12 day in and day out, 24 hours a day, as 1,152 calutrons managed to enrich 50 kilograms, or just over 100 pounds, of enriched Tubealloy.

  The General prepared the orders for the operation and sent a memo to the Secretary in Potsdam that included a map of Japan he’d snipped from a recent issue of National Geographic. He included a description of the four potential targets.

  The doubts of the scientists made little sense to the General. What was the point of all the security measures if the intent was not to strike targets with an element of surprise? He admired Truman for the decision he now faced, for undertaking it knowing full well that he would ultimately be viewed as responsible. No matter how many scientists or generals weighed in with their two cents, Truman would be viewed as the one who made the final call. It was on him and he knew it. The General respected him for that.

  Truman finally informed Stalin about the United States’ “new weapon of unusual destructive force.” Stalin did not appear overly surprised at the revelation. Russian stoicism? A masterful poker face? Or did Stalin already know more than Truman and the Secretary realized, as if he had been briefed on the progress of the Project all along?

  It would later be revealed that thanks to David Greenglass, Klaus Fuchs, George Koral, and others, Stalin had been more informed about the Project than anyone knew.

  On July 25, Truman gave the go-ahead to issue orders that the Gadget be used as soon after August 3 as would be possible. The next day those orders were passed along to General Spaatz, commander of the US Army Strategic Air Forces. Wheels were in motion. Also that day, the Engineer packaged the survey, a letter from Holly Compton, Szilard’s petition, and other documents with a cover letter stating, “It is recommended that these papers be forwarded to the President of the United States with the proper comments . . .” He sent it to the General.

  The evening of July 25, still in Potsdam, Truman wrote in his diary that the Gadget “may be the fire distruction [sic] prophesied in the Euphrates Valley era, after Noah and his fabulous ark. . . . An experiment in the New Mexican desert was startling—to put it mildly.” He wrote that he had told the Secretary to “use it so that military objectives and soldiers are the target and not women and children.”

  Regardless of how they felt about their enemy, Truman did not want the Gadget used on “the old Capitol or the new.” He added: “The target will be a purely military one and we will issue a warning statement asking the Japs to surrender and save lives. I’m sure they will not do that, but we will have given them the chance . . . It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful.”

  Terrible but useful. Just a week had passed since the General, scientists, and other guests had watched the terrible, useful display in the desert. Bill Laurence of The New York Times, the only journalist present for Trinity, was there taking notes that would later be disseminated to news outlets across the country. The Gadget had been a stunning, overwhelming success, its strange iridescent purple, pink, and orange beauty forever seared on memories of those first witnesses.

  Moments after the Trinity, once they’d regained their footing, Kenneth Bainbridge, the test director, had turned to face the Scientist.

  “Now we are all sons of bitches,” he said.

  The Scientist later said he recalled a line from the Hindu text the Bhagavad-Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

  ★ ★ ★

  The young courier would not be immediately returning to Tennessee.

  When Lieutenant Del Genio opened his return orders, he learned he was to depart July 26, 1945, for a small island in the Pacific called Tinian, in the Northern Mariana Islands. This time his cargo was a canister about two feet high, and maybe another foot or so wide. Whatever it contained, he had to keep it within sight until he landed at Tinian, well on the other side of the International Date Line. Clocking in at just roughly 39 square miles of land area, the tiny island just south of Saipan boasted little beyond its six massive 8,500-square-foot runways.

  As Del Genio made his way out over the Pacific on July 26, Britain and China joined the United States in issuing the Potsdam Proclamation, which called for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese. If the emperor refused, the Japanese would face “prompt and utter destruction.”

  At a secluded Farm Hall in England, July 26 brought more speculation among the captured German scientists interned there. The large three-story brick estate home was comfortable, but the men were unable to send or receive news from their families. Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner’s former colleague, was recorded as saying:

  They will not let us go until they are absolutely certain that no harm can be done or that we will not fall into Russian hands or anything like that. . . . I have told the Major: “If my American and English friends knew how I am being repaid for all my work since 1933, that I am not even allowed to write to my wife, they would be very surprised . . .” The outlook for the future is dark for all of us. I have not got a long future to look forward to. . . . Men are not idealists and everyone will not agree not to work on such a dangerous thing. Every country will work on it in secret. Especially as they will assume that it can be used as a weapon of war.

  ★ ★ ★

  Over the past two years, Ed Westcott had taken, developed, and sorted through thousands of photos. From these, photos were selected by Project heads to help tell CEW’s story—at least the version of the story the Project was ready to share. Soon everyone would know, in broad mighty strokes, what had been going on in Tennessee and elsewhere.

  On July 27, 33 photos were packaged with 14 different press releases that had been carefully crafted with the help of William Laurence. Some were flown under the guard and protection of the Air Force to Site Y, Site W, and Washington, DC, while intelligence agents transported other packets to major southern cities. There they waited. The information in these packets was not to be reviewed or released to news outlets until further instructions were received.

  Meanwhile, the 27th brought the Secretary to Frankfurt for a lunch and a meeting with General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe. The two men discussed the Project, and General Eisenhower shared his misgivings about use of the Gadget. He told the Secretary he hoped “we would never have to use such a thing against an enemy,” because, as he wrote three years later, he “disliked seeing the United States take the lead in introducing into war something as horrible and destructive as this new weapon was described to me.”

  Several days later, on August 1, the General delivered the Engineer’s package of petitions and other documents to the Secretary’s office. As far as the Engineer was eventually able to surmise, the package was then filed away and never delivered to the president, who was still in Potsdam. The Engineer understood. The scientific panel had made their opinion known and the decision, after all, had already been made.

  ★ ★ ★

  Early August 1945 and it was business as usual at CEW: There was an insatiable need to keep enriching Tubealloy. No stopping, no slowing.

  One day, a nurse had entered patient HP-12’s room only to find he wasn’t in it. His leg had finally been set and his teeth removed, but now no one seemed to know where he was. All that was left of Ebb Cade in the hospital were some biological samples. No more would be taken. Ebb Cade had gone missing, a
pernicious payload of plutonium still coursing through his veins.

  Had he checked himself out? Did he even bother? Did someone mention they saw his wife? All they did know was that he was gone.

  Unaware of this development in the hospital, Rosemary remained occupied with staffing and supplies. The administrative post suited her, and she was one of the top nurses at the booming medical facility. For a small-town girl from Iowa, the responsibility and opportunity had turned out to be more than she likely ever would have been able to find back home, or even in Chicago where she’d gone to school.

  Helen was headed to New Orleans to visit friends from back home now working there, a trip she’d planned for a while. She had taken a plane from Knoxville and was anxious for a break from her day-to-day routine, a change of scenery, and quality time with some good friends.

  The married girls, Celia and Dot, were busy at their homes, navigating both their nausea and their new roles as nonworking housewives. Jane’s team of number crunchers continued examining the figures that landed on tables dwarfed by massive Marchand and Monroe calculators, before passing their results along to Jane, who, in turn, sent them up an invisible chain of command.

  Y-12 was still bearing the brunt of production. K-25, still not fully producing at the level that the Project had hoped, was nevertheless providing an enrichment boost. Kattie kept her floors and tanks clean. Colleen navigated her pipes and hunted down leaks. But one thing had changed and was causing her a bit of concern: Blackie hadn’t proposed lately.

  Work at all the plants, in other words, continued at a breakneck pace. There was no reason to think anything would change.

  ★ ★ ★

  Virginia’s mind was on a long-awaited vacation to Washington, DC. She was heading off with her friend Barbara Smedley, a Lexington, Kentucky, woman who worked in Y-12. Virginia was looking forward to a little time away. They were planning to take the overnight train and had arranged for a sleeper car. The two were going to do all the things that tourists were supposed to do: walk along the mall, go to the museums. And there were plans to take a boat down to Norfolk so Virginia could visit her sister.

  But as Virginia’s departure approached, she had an interesting encounter with some of her colleagues. They took her aside, out of earshot.

  “You might not want to go anywhere right now,” they said.

  What on earth are they talking about? she wondered. Some of these men worked more closely with Dr. Larson, and they always seemed to have their ears tuned in to what was going on. More than Virginia felt she did, in any case.

  “Whatever it is,” they continued, “it’s about to happen.”

  CHAPTER 13

  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

  The Gadget Revealed

  The men themselves were strangely quiet at first. It seemed as if the strain of keeping certain things secret had stopped their flow of conversation completely. . . . And then the radio began to talk! It came like a physical blow to all of us.

  —Vi Warren, Oak Ridge Journal

  The very first thing Toni wanted to do was call Chuck at work. She had always assumed he would know before her, but no matter. She did know and she needed to hear what he thought. Everything would change now, wouldn’t it?

  Toni was beside herself. Phones rang, women gabbed uncontrollably, giving not a thought to what they were allowed to say, and no one even tried to stop them. Not once. The merest of details gleaned from paper, radio, or flapping gums were making their way down the halls, into corner offices, and throughout the secretarial pool. Slowly the entire Reservation was igniting, ripples of information expanding outward via word and wire. For every voice that uttered the News, at least two more spread it from there forward, faster this time, exponentially increasing the radius of those now in the know.

  “It’s a bomb!” Toni blurted when Chuck finally picked up the phone.

  She heard nothing in response.

  “Chuck! Chuck! Did you hear me? It’s a BOMB!!!”

  All Toni heard was a click at the other end of the line. Chuck hung up without saying a word.

  ★ ★ ★

  Rosemary Maiers entered Dr. Rea’s office and looked around at the others already gathered. No one knew why they had been summoned.

  The day had started off unremarkably until Dr. Rea blustered in, excited, but serious.

  “There’s a meeting in my office at eleven o’clock,” he told her. “There is going to be a very important public announcement from the president of the United States.”

  Now here she stood, along with a handful of other hospital staff, crowded around Dr. Rea’s radio. Waiting.

  Rosemary assumed—as did most others—that an important gathering around a radio must have something to do with the war. But how was it Dr. Rea seemed to know about the report ahead of time? Why did he know it was important enough to drag people away from their duties to listen?

  Dr. Rea walked over to the radio and turned it on. As he turned the dial, the alternating sounds of static and bursts of clear channel broadcasts filled the room. The station locked. Anticipation peaked. And an address that would shock the world began.

  Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important Japanese Army base. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of T.N.T. It had more than two thousand times the blast power of the British “Grand Slam” which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare.

  The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold. And the end is not yet. With this bomb we have now added a new and revolutionary increase in destruction to supplement the growing power of our armed forces. In their present form these bombs are now in production and even more powerful forms are in development.

  It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.

  President Truman sat aboard the USS Augusta en route back to the United States having issued this, the most important address of his tenure, from the middle of the Atlantic.

  Hiroshima was one of four potential targets chosen by the Target Committee. The General knew it to be an embarkation point for the Japanese Army and home to a local Army headquarters, storage, and industrial sites. The General had also favored Kyoto as a target due to its size, believing it to be a significant military target and ideal for determining the impact of the bomb. But the Secretary objected to bombing the cultural and ancient capital, as did the president.

  The overseas journey of most of the Gadget had begun July 16, the same day of the Trinity test. The USS Indianapolis carried the Gadget to Tinian, in the Northern Mariana Islands, where it arrived on July 26, the same day that the final bits of Product and the remaining parts of the Gadget left on a C-54 aircraft from New Mexico, under the watchful eye of Lieutenant Del Genio.

  The Indianapolis survived only four days after delivering its cargo to Tinian. It went down on July 30 along with roughly 900 crew members after an attack by a Japanese submarine. The ship, it was later learned, was extremely vulnerable to torpedoes and could be sunk by a single one.

  The General’s orders of July 23 had stated:

  “The 509 Composite Group, 20th Air Force, will deliver its first special bomb as soon as weather will permit visual bombing after about 3 August 1945, on one of the targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki,” and that “additional bombs will be delivered on the above targets as soon as made ready by the project staff.”

  No test of this, the gun model of the Gadget, using Product from CEW, had ever been conducted. The enriched Tubealloy was too scarce. The scientists were fairly confident that this model would work, however. Isometric drawings of the gun model were sketched by Miriam White Campbell, an architecture student who had joined the Army in 1943 and was eventually sent to Los Alamos, where her skills were put to use creating intricate drawings of the internal workings of the bomb.

 
; The first few days of August featured uncooperative weather. Hiroshima, with its 25,000 or so troops and a castle housing an army headquarters, was the primary target. There would be other “non-Gadget” attacks coming from the air the same day. The B-29 Enola Gay, piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets and named for his mother, would carry the atomic bomb, nicknamed Little Boy. There were two observation planes for the Enola Gay and a spare plane headed to Iwo Jima as a backup in case the Enola Gay suffered mechanical difficulties. Additionally, planes flew to Kokura Arsenal and Kokura, the secondary targets, and Nagasaki, a tertiary one, to provide eyewitness reports on weather in those locations.

  Atmospheric reports on August 5 looked more favorable. A midnight briefing led to a pre-flight breakfast and religious services before the Enola Gay and its payload took to the air on August 6, 2:45 AM Tinian time. The bomb dropped at 9:15 AM. The weaponeer of the Enola Gay, Captain Parsons, reported two “slaps” hitting the plane after the flash. At 10:00 AM he could still see the cloud, which he estimated to be 40,000 feet high. He and the others who observed the blast thought the Japanese might believe they were struck by a meteor.

  The General had initially believed another Gadget like the implosion model tested at Alamogordo in New Mexico would arrive at Tinian on August 6:

  Before 1939, it was the accepted belief of scientists that it was theoretically possible to release atomic energy. But no one knew any practical method of doing it. By 1942, however, we knew that the Germans were working feverishly to find a way to add atomic energy to the other engines of war with which they hoped to enslave the world. But they failed. We may be grateful to Providence that the Germans got the V-1’s and the V-2’s late and in limited quantities and even more grateful that they did not get the atomic bomb at all.