National Museum of Nuclear Science and History
Albuquerque, NM
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Scientists
John Dalton (1766-1844): Conceived the idea that the atoms of different elements are distinguished by differences in their weight.
Demetri Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834-1907): Formulated the periodic law of the chemical elements, which led to his creation of the first valid periodic table of elements (1869).
Henry Becquerel (1852-1908): Discovered radiation from a U-salt which contributed to a change in the understanding of classical physics and helped begin the era of atomic physics.
Marie Curie (1867-1934): Theorized radioactivity, created techniques for the isolation of radioactive isotopes and the discovery of the elements, Po and Ra.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955): Published “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies (1905)” which came to be known as his Special Theory of Relativity. This theory was revolutionary in that it provided a new understanding of the relationship between space and time, showing that time is a variable and a function of the relative velocity of one object to another. Einstein’s theories show the equivalence of mass and energy.
Sir William Crookes (1832-1919): Discovered the element U by observing a bright green emission line in its spectrum. He devised one of the first instruments for the study of nuclear radioactivity, the spinthariscope.
Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen (1845-1923): Discovered X-rays (1901).
Sir Joseph John Thomson (1856-1940): Discovered the electron and isotopes. He also invented the mass spectrometer.
Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937): Laid the foundation for the modern theory of atomic structure by showing that atoms have a nucleus, which contains positively charged protons surrounded by negatively charged electrons.
Niels Bohr (1885-1962): Modified Rutherford’s model to incorporate the ideas of quantum physics. He shewed that electrons exist in discreet energy levels. An atom’s chemical properties are a function of the number and arrangement of its electrons.
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Invasion of Japan?
During the bloody struggle to take the Philippines and Okinawa, President Truman and his military advisors were concentrating on an invasion of Japan. By June 22, 1945, American forces had secured bases in Okinawa, the Marianas, and Iwo Jima. With the defeat of Germany, the full might of the Allies was being directed at Japan. The US Navy was cruising off the Japanese coast and submarines were patrolling the Sea of Japan. The Japanese had been defeated militarily, but those in power in Tokyo were making plans for a house-to-house resistance to any invasion. Japan had over 5M men under arms, of which 2M were stationed on the home islands. Even housewives were being trained to augment the Home Guard. Based on Japan's dogged resistance at Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and other islands, and the recent heavy losses inflicted on American ships with Japanese kamikaze mission-piloted planes used as explosive missiles-the Allies determined that as many as 250,000 to 1M Allied soldiers and several million Japanese would die if the invasion scheduled for November 1 took place.
At the time, the development of the atomic bomb was a very closely guarded secret known only to a few top officials outside the Manhattan Project. Planning for the invasion of Japan did not take its existence into consideration until after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Ground operations would be planned and commanded by General MacArthur. Admiral Nimitz would command all naval operations.
Downfall: The plan for the two-phased invasion of Japan. The first, Operation Olympic, would take place on the southern island of Kyushu on November 1. Phase two, Operation Coronet, would use Kyushu as a staging area for the invasion of the Kanto plain, near Tokyo, on the main Island of Honshu in March 1946.
Operation Olympic: Set for "X-Day" (1 Nov, 1945), the plan was to invade the southern third of Kyushu capturing the harbor and airfields, then advance to the southern edge of the central mountains, forming a diagonal line across the island. This would isolate the remaining Japanese forces in the northern part of the island. Kyushu would serve as support for Operation Coronet. Olympic would be the largest amphibious operation to date. The invasion force would have ~340,000 US combat troops in 14 divisions. Most of the forces for Olympic were already present in the Pacific. They would be supported by ~42 aircraft carriers, 24 battleships, 400 destroyers and destroyer escorts, and the Far East Air Force.
Operation Coronet: Set for “Y-Day” (1 Mar, 1946). OP Coronet would be twice the size of Olympic with 25 combat divisions (Overlord had 12). Follow up forces included, for the first time in the Pacific, two full armored divisions. The plan entailed landings on opposite sides of Tokyo to seize the harbor and capture airfields. The main battle was expected to take place on the Kanto Plain, the living heart of Japan. Most of Japan's industry was located there. While many units already deployed in the Pacific would participate, the massive scale of the plan required large numbers of American troops to be re-deployed from Europe to the Pacific.
Operation Ketsugo (‘decisive’): The Japanese operation for the defense of Japan. The plan was to inflict so many casualties on the Americans on Kyushu, so as to forestall an invasion of Honshu and force the Americans to negotiate an end to the war. By late Jul, 1945, Japanese forces on Kyushu numbered ~600,000 troops in 14 IDs, seven mixed brigades, and two tank brigades.
Tokubetsu Kogeki Tai (Special Attack Units): The official designation for Japanese suicide units. The Japanese strategy was to destroy the invader's landing vessels before they hit the beaches. For this purpose, Japan had reserved ~5,000 conventional aircraft and a variety of suicide vehicles, including about 5,500 kamikaze planes, 1300 suicide submarines, 2,000 small suicide craft, and several hundred rocket powered piloted bombs. All that was left of the once mighty Japanese surface fleet was 19 destroyers, and they would sortie out on one last mission. There were frogmen, wearing explosives, who would blow up landing craft and themselves. The army devised suicide "lunge mines". These mines strapped to the backs of soldiers who would throw themselves under American tanks.
On 20 Apr, 1945 the Imperial Army HQ issued a decree declaring that "Our people should fight to the last person to repel the enemy force..." According to Army propaganda posters, every man, woman and child was expected to fight to the death. With the decisive battle would come "the Honorable Death of a Hundred Million" There was localized military training of civilians at schools and factories. Home defense units, comprised of non-combatants whose factories were destroyed or for other reasons were not working would be used to relieve soldiers of non-combat duties. In the end even these units would be expected to fight.
A US JCS study in Apr, 1945 offered a mathematical formula which implied that a 90-day Olympic campaign would cost 456,000 casualties, including 109,000 dead or missing. If Coronet took another 90 days, the combined cost would be 1,200,000 casualties, with 267,000 fatalities. Admiral Chester Nimitz's staff estimated casualties at sea in the first thirty days of Olympic would be 5,000. It is difficult to estimate the number of Japanese casualties for one or both operations. It would depend on the level of civilian participation in combat. But it is generally agreed the number would be in the millions. Truman authorized the landing on Kyushu, but withheld his approval for Coronet.
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Cold War
By 1987, the USSR was facing economic collapse. As a result, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev started a new détente with the USA, with the twin goals of perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness).
As powerful nationalist movements in the 15 Soviet republics emerged by 1989-1990, communism had effectively come apart in Europe. During this period, Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia rejected communism at the polls.
In May 1989, Hungary began dismantling the 150-mile-long barbed wire fence along its border with Austria. This action led to a series of events that contributed to the collapse of the Socialist Unity (Communist) Party in East Germany. Tens of thousands of East Germans took advantage of their right to travel to Hungary and crossed the border into Austria on their way to West Germany.
In Nov, 1989, the Berlin Wall was torn down. The people of Berlin took great joy in attacking this hated symbol of communist repression. In Oct, 1990, the German Democratic Republic (the Communist government of East Germany) was abolished, and Germany was reunited.
By 1991, all of the republics in the USSR were pressing for their independence. On 6 Sep, 1991, the USSR recognized the independence of the three Baltic States: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. On 21 Dec, 1991 the last republics declared their independence.
On 25 Dec, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as Soviet President and the next day the USSR dissolved. The red Soviet flag atop the Kremlin was replaced with the white, red, and blue flag of pre-revolutionary Russia. The Cold War was over. It ended with a whimper instead of a bang.
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Weapons
Mk-1 ‘Little Boy’ (1945): A gun-type nuclear weapon used against Hiroshima, Japan.
Mk-2 (1964-1982): A re-entry body carried aboard a Polaris A-3 Fleet Ballistic Missile with W-58 warheads.
Mk-7 (1952-1968): The first nuclear weapon that could be carried by USAF and USN fighter aircraft. Although it was carried externally by fighters (F-84, F-100, F-101), it also could be carried internally be bombers such as the B-57. It was capable of either air or ground detonation.
Mk-8 (1951-1957): An earth-penetrating bomb or bunker buster, intended to dig in deep and then detonate. It was the first tactical bomb ever deployed by the US. Developed by the USN, the Mk-8 was a simple designed based on the Mk-1 Little Boy bomb and could be carried externally or internally by aircraft.
M31 ‘Honest John’ (1954-1961): The first nuclear tipped rocket to be deployed by the US Army; deployed to Europe in Spring, 1954.
M50 ‘Improvised Honest John’ (1961-1982): An improved version of the M31 Honest John introduced in 1961. The M50 was lighter, shorter, and had an increased range. Retired in Jul, 1982.
B-57 (1963-1993): The smallest free-fall nuclear bomb developed by the US; a thermonuclear weapon designed for the USN for use against battlefield targets both on land and at sea. It could be carried by all fighters and bomber aircraft in USN service.
B-61 (1968- Present): A parachute-retarded or free-fall nuclear weapon that can be dropped at high speeds from altitudes as low as 50’.
Mk-101 ‘Lulu’ (1958-1971): A small implosion type nuclear death bomb. The Lulu exploded at a depth and time that allowed the delivery aircraft to escape. The Lulu was developed in response to a Soviet submarine fleet buildup and functioned as an anti-ship weapon that could inflict lethal damage to submerged high speed submarines. The Lulu carried the W34 nuclear warhead.
WE-77 (UK): The last air-dropped nuclear bomb of the British Armed Forces.
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Broken Arrows
19 Sep, 1980: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs at a Titan II ICBM site in Damascus, AR.
22 May, 1968: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs at sea in the Atlantic Ocean.
21 Jan, 1968: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs as a result of a B-52 crash at Thule, Greenland.
17 Jan, 1966: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs as a result of a B-52/KC-135 crash at Palomares, Spain.
5 Dec, 1965: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs as a result of an A-4 crash in the Pacific Ocean.
11 Oct, 1965: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs as a result of a C-124 crash at Wright-Patterson AFB, OH.
8 Dec, 1964: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs as a result of a B-58 crash at Bunker Hill AFB, IN.
5 Dec, 1964: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs as a result of a LGM 30B (Minuteman ICBM) incident at Ellsworth AFB, SD.
13 Jan, 1964: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs as a result of a B-52 crash at Cumberland, MD.
13 Nov, 1963: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs at the AEC Storage Igloo at Medina Base, TX.
14 Mar, 1961: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs as a result of a B-52 crash at Yuba City, CA.
24 Jan, 1961: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs as a result of a B-52 crash at Goldsboro, NC.
7 Jun, 1960: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs as a result of a BOMARC crash at McGuire AFB, NJ.
15 Oct, 1959: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs as a result of a B-52/KC-135 crash in Hardinsberg, KT.
25 Sep, 1959: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs as a result of a P-5M crash off Whidbey Island, WA.
6 Jul, 1959: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs as a result of a C-124 crash at Barksdale AFB, LA.
18 Jan, 1959: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs as a result of an F-100 crash at Pacific Base.
26 Nov, 1958: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs as a result of a B-47 crash at Chennault AFB, LA.
4 Nov, 1958: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs as a result of a B-47 crash at Dyess AFB, TX.
11 Mar, 1958: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs after a B47 crashes at Florence, SC.
5 Feb, 1958: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs after a B47 crashes at Savannah River, GA.
31 Jan, 1958: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs after a B47 crashes in French Morocco.
11 Oct, 1957: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs after a B47 crashes at Homestead AFB, FL.
28 Jul, 1957: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs as a result of a C-124 crash in the Atlantic Ocean.
27 May, 1957: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs at Kirtland AFB, NM.
27 Jul, 1956: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs at Lakenheath Air Base in Suffolk, UK.
10 Mar, 1956: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs in the Mediterranean Sea.
10 Nov, 1950: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs over water, outside the US.
5 Aug, 1950: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs in Fairfield, Suison AFB, CA.
13 Jul, 1950: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs in Lebanon, OH.
11 Apr, 1950: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs as a result of a plane crash over Manzana base, NM.
13 Feb, 1950: A US “Broken Arrow” occurs in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of BC.
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Terminology
Fissile: Material that can be split by either fast or slow neutrons.
Heavy Water: A form of water in which the H atom has 1 or 2 protons; deuterium and tritium, respectively. Heavy water moderates (slows down) neutrons, which helps keep a fission nuclear reactor working. Nuclear reactors that use heavy water can employ a form of uranium commonly found in nature (U-238) rather than requiring LEU or HEU.
Holocaust: The state-led, systematic persecution and genocide of the Jews and other targeted minority groups of Europe and N. Africa during WWII by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. The Jews of Europe were main victim of the Holocaust- estimated at 5-7M deaths- in what the Nazi’s called the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question.” Numerous other groups including Gypsies, Poles, Serbs, the mentally and physically disabled, homosexuals, communists, Catholic and protestant clergy, Soviet military, POWs, and others deemed racially inferior or undesirable, were also exterminated en masse. The total death toll is estimated at 9-11M. The Holocaust was geographically widespread and conducted in virtually all areas of Nazi-occupied territory in what are now 35 separate European nations. The mass killing was at its worst in Central and Eastern Europe, which had more than 7M Jews in 1939. The Nazi Holocaust is distinguished from other genocides in history for its commitment to wipe out as many individuals of the targeted groups as efficiently as possible. The Nazis kept meticulous records of the killings, experimented with numerous methods of mass executions, conducted medical experiments and euthanasia programs, killed children and babies without reprieve, and often humiliated and tortured their victims in numerous labor and concentration camps.
UNRECO: A US U-enrichment facility that uses centrifuge technology. At full capacity the facility can produce sufficient enriched U for nuclear fuel to provide ~8% of US electricity needs.
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Chronology
26 Dec, 1991: End of the Cold War; the USSR dissolves; the red Soviet flag atop the Kremlin is replaced with the white, red, and blue flag of pre-revolutionary Russia (Museum of Nuclear Science).
25 Dec, 1991: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev resins (Museum of Nuclear Science).
6 Sep, 1991: The USSR recognizes the independence of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia (Museum of Nuclear Science).
Oct, 1990: The German Democratic Rep. (Communist Government of East Germany) is abolished; Germany is reunited (Museum of Nuclear Science).
Nov, 1989: Berlin Wall; the people of Berlin destroy the Berlin Wall (Museum of Nuclear Science).
May, 1989: Hungary begins dismantling its 250 km long barbed wire fence along its border with Austria. Tens of thousands of East Germans took advantage of their right to travel to Hungary and crossed the border into Austria on their way to West Germany (Museum of Nuclear Science).
1987: The USSR is facing economic collapse. As a result, Soviet President Gorbachev starts a new détente with the USA, with the twin goals of perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness) (Museum of Nuclear Science).
24 Jun, 1948- 11 May, 1949: The Berlin Blockade; USSR ground forces block US aid from Berlin. In response, the Western Allies organize the Berlin Airlift to carry supplies to the airport. In all, the USAF, RAF, and other commonwealth nations fly over 200,000 flights to Berlin. By the spring of 1949, the effort was clearly succeeding, and by April the airlift was delivering more cargo than had previously flowed into the city by rail. The success of the Airlift was humiliating to the Soviets, who had repeatedly claimed it could never work. When it became clear that it did work, the blockade was lifted in May. During this time, 25 aircraft were lost and 101 people killed. One lasting legacy of the Airlift is the three airports in the former western zones of the city, which served as the primary gateways to Berlin for another 50 yrs. The blockade becomes one of the first major international crises of the Cold War and the first such crisis that results in casualties (Museum of Nuclear Science).
5 Jun, 1947: The Marshall Plan (‘European Recovery Act’); in a commencement speech at Harvard U., Secretary of State George C. Marshall offers US aid and cooperation in rebuilding Europe's shattered economy. He extended this offer to all of Europe including the USSR. The USSR declined to participate, completing the economic and political division of Europe. At this point, the Cold War had begun (Museum of Nuclear Science).
12 Mar, 1947: Truman Doctrine; POTUS Truman makes a speech to USC requesting authorization to send aid to Greece and Turkey to help them resist the spread of communism. This willingness to actively oppose communism became known as the Truman Doctrine. The USSR viewed this as a declaration of Cold War (Museum of Nuclear Science).
5 Mar, 1946: “Iron Curtain”; during a tour of the US, Churchill gives a speech in Fulton, Missouri, in which he issues a warning about Soviet aggression- "from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent." The term "iron curtain" became synonymous with the split between East and West. In spite of this warning, the US continued to pursue peaceful relations with the USSR (Museum of Nuclear Science).
Mar, 1946: The Acheson-Lilienthal Report; US Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson and TVA administrator David Lilienthal, issue “the Report on the International Control of Atomic Energy” suggesting that an international body- such as the UN- have control over atomic materials and the means of producing nuclear energy. Information on atomic energy would be shared, research facilities would be divided among the nations involved, and the international body would conduct inspections (Museum of Nuclear Science).
Jun, 1946: POTUS Truman selects businessman Bernard Baruch to present the Acheson-Lilienthal plan at the UN. Baruch, however, changed many of the key points of the plan and insisted that the US would have an ultimate veto power on any issues arising in connection with the plan. The USSR rejected the idea so the vote was never held in the UN. The US and the USSR would go their own ways in developing their nuclear arsenals (Museum of Nuclear Science).
Jun, 1945: The UN is founded as the organization through which international disputes should be settled (Museum of Nuclear Science).
2 Dec, 1942: Chicago Pile (CP-1); Italian Enrico Fermi, heading a team of scientists, inaugurates the first controlled nuclear chain reaction in a squash court under the stands of the unused U. of Chicago football stadium. Fermi and several students piled up 500 tons of very pure graphite along with 50 tons of U and U-oxide in a matrix until the pile reached 48 layers. The graphite and U were both machined into blocks about the size of a loaf of bread for ease of handling (Museum of Nuclear Science).
11 Dec, 1941: Nazi Germany and Italy declare war on the USA (Museum of Nuclear Science).
8 Dec, 1941: POTUS FDR and the USC declare war on Japan- "a day which will live in infamy" (Museum of Nuclear Science).
7 Dec, 1941: Pearl Harbor; the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) makes a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, aimed at crippling the USN’s Pacific Fleet and its defending Army Air Corps and Marine defensive squadrons. The attack severely damages or destroys 12 American warships, 188 aircraft, and kills 2,403 American servicemen and 68 civilians. It temporarily removes the USN’s battleship force as a possible threat to the Japanese empire's southward expansion. The US aircraft carriers were not in port, so they escaped damage. Pearl Harbor was the first attack on home soil by another country since the War of 1812 (Museum of Nuclear Science).
Sep, 1939: Physicists Niels Bohr and John Wheeler publish a paper in Physical Review entitled “The Mechanism of Nuclear Fission,” concluding that atoms with a high mass number that contain an even number of protons and an odd number of neutrons will fission rather easily when they are hit with slow, low-energy neutrons. U-235 is an even-odd combination (92 protons and 143 neutrons) (Museum of Nuclear Science).
Dec, 1938: Lisa Meitner and her physicists nephew Otto Frisch give the correct interpretation of the Hahn-Strassman discovery as nuclear fission. They were familiar with Francis Aston’s work on binding energy and mass defect and determined that the fission of each U atom would release 200 MeV in accordance with Einstein’s E=mc2 (Museum of Nuclear Science).
Otto Frisch took this information to Niels Bohr in Copenhagen, Denmark. Bohr carried the news to the US, and on 26 Jan, 1939, at a conference on theoretical physics in Washington DC, he revealed the news of nuclear fission (Museum of Nuclear Science).
Nov, 1938: German chemists, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman, conduct an experiment whereby they bombard U with neutrons. Expecting the U atom to capture a neutron and grow into something larger, they were shocked to find that this bombardment resulted in the production of Ba (atomic number 56). It appeared that the U atom had split, which was a theoretical impossibility at that time (Museum of Nuclear Science).
13 Dec, 1937: The Rape of Nanking; the IJA capture and occupy Nanking, China. During the occupation, the army commits numerous atrocities, including rape, looting, arson, and execution of POWs and civilians (including women and children). The non-combatant death toll was estimated at 300,000. Both Britain and the US denounced the Nanking massacre, but take no immediate direct action (Museum of Nuclear Science).
Jul, 1937: Japan fully invades China (Museum of Nuclear Science).
1936: The Japanese and Germany governments sign a non-aggression pact (Museum of Nuclear Science).
Nov, 1935: Nuremberg Laws; Germany’s Nazi government passes a series of antisemitic laws which redefine a Jew as someone with three Jewish grandparents, regardless as to what religion they now practice. The laws strip Jews of their German citizenship and bar marriage between Jews and other Germans (Museum of Nuclear Science).
1930s: The Japanese military establish almost complete control over the Japanese government. They set their sights on conquering resource-rich China, Korea, and other countries in SE Asia, for the materials needed to continue their rapid industrialization and development. Imperial Japan's goal was to compete with or overtake American and European powers and establish a new world order in the East. Japan had earlier annexed Taiwan (Formosa) in 1895 and Korea in 1910 as agricultural colonies; Manchuria was targeted for its iron and coal, Indochina for its rubber, and China for its agricultural resources (Museum of Nuclear Science).
1933: Japan withdraws from the League of Nations (Museum of Nuclear Science).
Apr, 1933: Nazi Germany’s Civil Service Act; Germany’s Nazi government passes the “Restoration of the Professional Civil Service Act” which establishes the ability of the Nazi Party to legally remove Jews and other undesirables from the civil service profession, including doctors, teachers, university professors, scientists, and lawyers. About a thousand university teachers are dismissed regardless of tenure (Museum of Nuclear Science).
1931: American physicist Harold Urey discovers Deuterium, heavy water (Museum of Nuclear Science).
1931: The Japanese Military establish a puppet regime in Tokyo called “Manchukuo” (Museum of Nuclear Science).
1910: Japan annexes Korea as an agricultural colony (Museum of Nuclear Science).
1901: Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen discovers X-rays (Museum of Nuclear Science).
1895: Japan annexes Taiwan (Formosa) as an agricultural colony (Museum of Nuclear Science).
1869: Demetri Mendeleev formulates the periodic law of the chemical elements, which leads to his creation of the first valid periodic table of the elements (Museum of Nuclear Science).
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