Project Alberta

How it began

The work began long before it had a name. From June 1943 the Delivery Group of the Ordnance Division at Los Alamos worked out how a bomber could carry the bomb and drop it. Project Alberta, also called Project A, was set up in March 1945 to bring that work together. ^{Sources: 1, 3, 5}

It had three jobs: to finish designing, buying and assembling the bomb units, to carry on the test drops at Wendover, and to prepare for the operation overseas. ^{Sources: 3}

Between October 1944 and the middle of August 1945, 155 test units were dropped at Wendover, in Utah, or at Inyokern, in California. At Wendover the Little Boy gun was tested in thirty-two successful drops, and failed to fire only once. ^{Sources: 3}

In February 1945 Commander Frederick Ashworth was sent to Tinian to survey it and choose a site for the project. ^{Sources: 3, 9}

The team

The people for Tinian were chosen early in May 1945. Captain William Parsons of the US Navy was in charge, with Norman Ramsey as his scientific and technical deputy and Commander Frederick Ashworth as operations officer. ^{Sources: 1, 3, 10}

They worked in seven teams: Fat Man assembly, Little Boy assembly, fusing, electrical detonators, the pit (the plutonium core), observation, and aircraft ordnance. Three special consultants went too: the physicist Robert Serber, the British scientist William Penney, and Captain James Nolan, an Army doctor. ^{Sources: 1, 3, 11}

The team leaders met as a technical committee under Ramsey. Every civilian had to wear uniform, with an Army rank to match his salary. An Army unit, the First Technical Service Detachment, housed the group and set its security rules. ^{Sources: 3}

On Tinian, decisions about the missions were taken together by Parsons, Brigadier General Thomas Farrell for the Army and Rear Admiral William Purnell for the Navy, sometimes with Colonel Paul Tibbets of the 509th. They were known as the Tinian Joint Chiefs. ^{Sources: 1, 3, 12}

• Officer in charge

  William S. “Deak” Parsons

  Captain, US Navy 1901 to 1953

  Project Alberta headquarters

  On Tinian

  Flew to Hiroshima in Enola Gay as weaponeer, and loaded the gun in flight.

  Later

  Took part in Operation Crossroads, the 1946 atomic tests at Bikini.

  ^{Sources: 3, 4, 13}

• Scientific and technical deputy

  Norman F. Ramsey

  Civilian 1915 to 2011

  Project Alberta headquarters

  On Tinian

  Chaired the committee of team leaders.

  Later

  Won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1989.

  ^{Sources: 3, 10}

• Operations officer

  Frederick L. Ashworth

  Commander, US Navy 1912 to 2005

  Project Alberta headquarters

  On Tinian

  Chose the site, then flew to Nagasaki in Bockscar as weaponeer.

  Later

  Rose to vice admiral and commanded the Sixth Fleet.

  ^{Sources: 3, 9, 14}

• Team leader

  Francis Birch

  Commander, US Navy 1903 to 1992

  Little Boy Assembly Team

  On Tinian

  Flew out with the uranium target, then supervised the assembly of Little Boy and its loading into Enola Gay on 5 August.

  Later

  A Harvard geophysicist, he received the National Medal of Science in 1967.

  ^{Sources: 3, 15}

• Team leader

  Roger S. Warner Jr.

  Civilian

  Fat Man Assembly Team

  On Tinian

  Led the assembly of Fat Man.

  Later

  Headed weapon preparation for the Bikini tests in 1946.

  ^{Sources: 3, 16, 17}

• Team leader

  Philip Morrison

  Civilian 1915 to 2005

  Pit Team

  On Tinian

  Led the team for Fat Man’s plutonium core, with Charles Baker.

  Later

  Helped found the Federation of American Scientists.

  ^{Sources: 3, 18}

• Team member

  Raemer E. Schreiber

  Civilian 1910 to 1998

  Pit Team

  On Tinian

  Carried Fat Man’s plutonium core out from New Mexico.

  Later

  Deputy Director of Los Alamos from 1972 to 1974.

  ^{Sources: 3, 19, 20}

• Team leader

  Edward B. Doll

  Civilian

  Fusing Team

  ^{Sources: 3, 21}

• Team leader

  Luis W. Alvarez

  Civilian 1911 to 1988

  Observation Team

  On Tinian

  Flew to Hiroshima in The Great Artiste as a scientific observer.

  Later

  Won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968.

  ^{Sources: 3, 22}

• Team leader

  Bernard Waldman

  Civilian 1913 to 1986

  Observation Team

  On Tinian

  Filmed the Hiroshima explosion from Necessary Evil, but the film could not be developed properly.

  Later

  Associate director of the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State.

  ^{Sources: 3, 23}

• Team member

  Harold M. Agnew

  Civilian 1921 to 2013

  Observation Team

  On Tinian

  Flew to Hiroshima as an observer, measuring the blast.

  Later

  Director of Los Alamos from 1970 to 1979.

  ^{Sources: 3, 24}

• Team member

  Lawrence H. Johnston

  Civilian 1918 to 2011

  Observation Team

  On Tinian

  Watched both missions from The Great Artiste.

  Later

  Taught physics at the University of Idaho until he retired in 1988.

  ^{Sources: 3, 25}

• Team leader

  Sheldon Dike

  Civilian 1916 to 1984

  Aircraft Ordnance Team

  ^{Sources: 3, 26}

• Team member

  Harlow W. Russ

  Civilian 1912 to 1998

  Project Alberta

  On Tinian

  Helped assemble Fat Man.

  Later

  Wrote Project Alberta, a history of the team’s work.

  ^{Sources: 3, 27, 28}

• Team member

  Bernard J. O’Keefe

  Ensign, US Navy died 1989

  Project Alberta

  On Tinian

  Worked on Fat Man’s firing unit.

  Later

  Chief executive of the research company EG&G from 1965 to 1983.

  ^{Sources: 3, 29, 30}

• Special consultant

  Robert Serber

  Civilian 1909 to 1997

  Project Alberta

  Later

  Among the first Americans to enter Hiroshima and Nagasaki in September 1945; later a professor at Columbia.

  ^{Sources: 3, 31}

• Special consultant

  William G. Penney

  Civilian, British 1909 to 1991

  Project Alberta

  On Tinian

  Watched the Nagasaki explosion from Big Stink.

  Later

  Led Britain’s first atomic test, Hurricane, in 1952.

  ^{Sources: 3, 32}

• Special consultant

  James F. Nolan

  Captain, US Army Medical Corps

  Project Alberta

  On Tinian

  Escorted Little Boy’s parts to Tinian, landing on 26 July.

  Later

  Later researched the treatment of gynaecological cancers.

  ^{Sources: 3, 11}

The technical area

The Seabees, the Navy’s construction battalions, put up the buildings from April 1945. The laboratory and instrument work was done in four air-conditioned Quonset huts, of the kind used to repair bombsights, in a specially guarded area. Beside them stood five warehouses, a shop and an administration building. ^{Sources: 3}

About a mile away were three air-conditioned assembly buildings, set well apart, barricaded and guarded. There were also ten magazines and two loading pits with hydraulic lifts, and a third pit was built on Iwo Jima for emergencies. ^{Sources: 3, 8}

Supplies went out by sea in five batches from May. Anything urgent went in the 509th’s five C-54 transports, which the official Los Alamos history credits with letting the project beat its schedules. ^{Sources: 2, 3}

Keeping in touch with Los Alamos was hard. Security rules made direct contact impossible, and the official history calls the exchange of information extremely unsatisfactory. ^{Sources: 3}

Little Boy

Little Boy came in pieces. Its uranium projectile arrived on USS Indianapolis on 26 July 1945, and the target pieces came in three transport aircraft on 28 and 29 July. Francis Birch, who led the Little Boy team, flew out with the target. ^{Sources: 3, 5, 6, 15}

On Tinian the team dropped four Little Boy test units, all with excellent results. The last test also checked the pit on Iwo Jima, where the bomb could be moved into another aircraft in an emergency. ^{Sources: 3}

The bomb was ready by 2 August. The weather was not, and the first four days of August, in the official history’s words, were spent in impatient waiting. On the morning of 5 August the forecast for the next day was good, and Little Boy was taken to the pit and loaded into Enola Gay. ^{Sources: 3, 5, 15}

Only a few days before the mission, the team decided it was not safe to take off with Little Boy fully assembled. So Parsons loaded the propellant charges in flight, standing in the bomb bay, and had practised the job on the ground the day before. ^{Sources: 3, 5, 7, 33, 34}

His log gives the times: take off at 02:45, the gun loaded between 03:00 and 03:15, and the bomb dropped at 09:15 Tinian time. ^{Sources: 3, 35}

Fat Man

Fat Man’s plutonium core was flown out from New Mexico by Raemer Schreiber of the pit team. It reached Tinian on 28 July. ^{Sources: 19, 20, 36, 37}

The team dropped three Fat Man test units on Tinian, the first on 1 August. The last, on 8 August, was a full rehearsal, with a unit complete in every way except for the plutonium. ^{Sources: 3, 8}

Fat Man was due to be dropped on 11 August. By 7 August the team could manage 10 August, but when Parsons and Ramsey told Tibbets, he wished it could be two days earlier: good weather was forecast for 9 August and bad weather for the five days after. The team agreed to try. ^{Sources: 3}

Before the nose cap went on, people wrote their names and messages on the casing. ^{Sources: 38, 39}

The bomb was loaded and fully checked late in the evening of 8 August. Ashworth later recalled that during that last night Bernard O’Keefe found a cable connector inside the bomb that would not fit its partner, and unsoldered and swapped the connectors himself. ^{Sources: 3, 29, 37}

Fat Man could not be made safe for take-off by leaving it unfinished, as Little Boy had been. The technical staff feared that a crash could scatter plutonium across Tinian, and asked for guards and an evacuation plan. The Air Force officer in command decided these were not necessary, and the take-off went without incident. ^{Sources: 3}

Afterwards

The day after Nagasaki, Japan began to negotiate its surrender, and work on further bombs stopped. The team was kept ready to assemble more in case the talks failed. ^{Sources: 3} General Groves held back the core for a third bomb on 13 August; The bomb tells that story. ^{Sources: 40}

Some of the team went on to Japan with Farrell’s mission to study what the bombs had done. The rest of the scientists and technicians left Tinian on 7 September 1945, while Ashworth and Colonel Kirkpatrick stayed behind to dispose of the project’s property. ^{Sources: 1, 3, 8}

Several of them were back in the Pacific the next summer for the atomic tests at Bikini, Operation Crossroads. Parsons, Roger Warner and Raemer Schreiber all had senior parts in it. ^{Sources: 13, 17, 41}