Colonel Tibbets: The Manhattan Project

Thesis: The research for the first Atomic bomb was done in the United States, by a group of the best scientists; this research was given the name of "The Manhattan Project". On Monday July 16th, 1945, a countdown for the detonation of the first atomic bomb took place near Los Alamos, New Mexico. This atomic bomb testing would forever change the meaning of war. As the atomic bomb was detonated it sent shock-waves all over the world. There was endless research done on the bomb in the United States. The research was called "The Manhattan Engineer District Project" but it was more commonly known as "The Manhattan Project."1 The Manhattan Project was brought by fear of Germany and it's atomic

The Manhattan Project had various short and long term affects around the world. Primarily, the research done to create an atomic bomb led to the discovery of how to harness nuclear power which affects our lives to this day. However, the Manhattan Project also led to the creation of two more atomic bombs which would be used in WWII, radiation poisoning resulting in the death of many , fear of nuclear weapons during the Cold War, the end of the Second World War which was still taking place in Japan, and the threat of nuclear weapons around the world that still exists.

The Manhattan Project was a secret problem barely anyone knew about.Many of the scientists that were involved with the Manhattan Project heard about the Axis powers gaining knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons that could destroy a whole nation.The Manhattan Project produced two atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan.The atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Hiroshima was chosen as the target for the first atomic bomb because it was a large port city with an army base. The bomb dropped on Nagasaki missed its target by over a mile.

It was December 7, 1942 a beautiful mourning in Pearl Harbor. When out of the blue, hundreds of Japanese planes bomb and either sunk or severely damaged eight battle ships and at least thirteen other naval ships that were docked on the shore. This spark is what involved the United States the forest fire known as World War II. My paper is not on the war itself, but is on the atomic bomb, and what was known as the Manhattan project. In my report I will talk about the many reasons, the atomic bomb had to be created and used.

It became known that the German knew how to create an atomic bomb and FDR created a committee to study and create atomic bombs, named the Manhattan Project.The Manhattan Project was significant to the war because it led to the end of World War II and caused the Japanese to surrender to the Americans. The amount of people working together along with the cost and time which led to advancements in technology that was far ahead of any enemy. The creation of the bombs delivered a push in the advancement of science, innovation, designing, military and the entire of society into another age. It drew out the powerhouse that we consider today to be the United States of

Leading up to this time the fascist dictators began to gain power in European countries. The big three being the countries of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, Italy, Benito Mussolini, and Japan, Emperor Hirohito. In 1935 Italy invades and conquers Ethiopia, shorty after Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy sign a treaty of cooperation. In 1937,Japan, lead by Hirohito, invaded China. Joseph Stalin, of Russia, signs the German-Russian non-aggression pact; which allowed Hitler to invade Poland. But when news of the German invasion of Poland spread Britain along with France joined the war to oppose the Germans. Germany only continues in it’s quest for conquest by invading Denmark and Norway in the year 1940. Meanwhile the United States is remaining completely uninvolved under it’s Neutrality Act that was passed in 1935. The United States, lead by president Franklin D. Roosevelt, enacted it’s Lend Lease Act in 1941 in order to trade and sell to allied forces, for payment after war. Japan realizes that the U.S. wasn’t exactly being neutral so it sent suicide bombers to attack our naval base in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Thus leading into the use of the atomic bomb, but first the construction, an event referred to as the Manhattan Project. The name Manhattan Project came about because the program began under the Manhattan Engineering District of the War Department.

     When the first atomic bomb was detonated in Alamogordo New Mexico on June 16, 1945, all the scientists involved in the Manhattan Project understood the great destructive power of radio-active isotopes. Although the atomic bomb was a very destructive force our world would not be as good without it. Because of the government funding involved in the project coupled with the need for an atom bomb, much research that otherwise may not have occurred took place in the US. The Manhattan project opened the door to nuclear advancements and applications.

U.S. intelligence operatives reported that scientists working for Adolf Hitler were already working on a nuclear weapon.

The research for the first Atomic bomb took place in the United States, by a group of nuclear engineers; the name of this research was called, “The Manhattan Project”. On July 16, 1945, the detonation of the first atomic bomb was tested near Los Alamos, New Mexico. As the atomic bomb was detonated, it sent shock-waves across the globe, which demonstrated that nuclear power would forever change the meaning of war.

The process of building the two atomic bombs was long and hard. The Manhattan project employed 120,000 people, and cost almost $2 billion. Although there were 120,000 Americans working on the project only a select group of scientist knew of the atomic bomb development. Vice president Truman never knew about the development of the bombs until he became president. The axis powers did not know what was going on with the development of the atomic bomb; there was a soviet spy in the project. The soviet spy was Klaus Fuchs, and he had become one of the few people who knew of the bombs.

The Manhattan Project was assembled when “in 1939 the world’s scientific community discovered that German physicists had learned the secrets of splitting a uranium atom.” (US History 1) This caused many people to panic and it was later agreed that this issue of the Axis powers developing nuclear weaponry should be brought up to the United States, which could perhaps stop the Germans from causing unspeakable destruction to much of the world. Scientists Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi, who both were living in the United States after leaving their previous countries to escape from either persecution or just leave the fascist state that Italy was currently in. Fermi was the scientist that went to Washington in order to express his concerns about this development of the splitting of the uranium atoms but not many others shared his concerns. Once Fermi

First, the project was created to not only build the first atomic bomb for the U.S. but to ensure that the U.S. had a bigger weapon compared to Germany. When the U.S. heard that Germany had the capability of a weapon of mass destruction, in 1940 the U.S. cultivated the soon-to-be called Manhattan Project with $6,000 in research funds and the supervision of L.J. Briggs (director of National Bureau of Standards). In 1942, the Army

The Manhattan Project was the code name of the America’s attempt to construct an atomic bomb during World War II. It was named after the Manhattan Engineer District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, because a lot of it’s earlier research was done in New York City. An atomic bomb is a weapon that uses the energy from a nuclear reaction called Fission for its destruction.

Leona Woods Marshall Libby was born August 9, 1919. Leona was born to a family of five children, she had two brothers and two sisters. When Leona was 19, she received her BS in chemistry from the University of Chicago. After completing her graduate thesis she begged for a job at Enrico Fermi’s Lab. Finally, she was accepted as one of the only women working on the project. Leona was a very accomplished women, though it was said she could do “a man’s job well,” she actually helped construct the detectors for monitoring the flux of neutrons in the “pile” which was an atomic large stack of uranium and graphite blocks. On December 2, 1942, that “pile,” called Chicago Pile #1, went critical, and Leona was there. The automatic control rod was set too low during the safety check, but was fixed quickly. Leona married John Marshall in 1943.

In 1941, The United States began an atomic bomb program called the “Manhattan Project.” The main objective of the “Manhattan Project” was to research and build an atomic bomb before Germany could create and use one against the allied forces during World War II. German scientists had started a similar research program four years before the United States began so the scientists of the “Manhattan Project” felt a sense of urgency throughout their work (Wood “Men … Project”).