EIGHT
IT SAT ON a dolly beside a parked reconfigured prototype of a B-29 in the bomb-loading area, in an isolated corner of Wendover. A lieutenant in coveralls was engaged in a discussion with several other men in coveralls. It was about ten feet long, maybe five feet in diameter, and was painted mustard-yellow. We would soon refer to it and the scores of duplicates we received later as “pumpkins” because of their shape and color. The pumpkin was a concrete-filled ten-thousand-pound replica of the final exterior design of the first plutonium bomb. In eleven months, after considerable refinements to its interior at Los Alamos, New Mexico, the real thing would take mankind across the threshold from theoretical physics into the nuclear age.
The parked B-29 was both a reminder of the dual tracks on which our scientists in the Manhattan Project were proceeding and a testament to the uncertainty of how best to proceed. Originally the bomb was to have been a fairly primitive design using a uranium core at the end of a long gun barrel. A particle of uranium would be fired down the barrel and hit the uranium core, initiating a chain reaction. It was basic atomic physics. At the beginning, the gun barrel design seemed the most practical. However, the scientists were still working out the minimum dimensions into which they could build a working uranium bomb. To accommodate the final design and provide a yardstick for the scientists, the center section of the belly of this B-29 had been cut out from the front of the forward bomb bay to the rear of its aft bomb bay, creating a single bomb bay that allowed for a bomb with a maximum length of twenty-eight feet. Ultimately, the scientists would get the package for the uranium bomb down to ten feet, which could be loaded into the forward bomb bay. Only one untested uranium bomb would ever be made, and Paul Tibbets would drop it over Hiroshima.
Later, the scientists solved the technical problems of a much more sophisticated plutonium implosion device that made the uranium bomb instantly obsolete. But for all the complex physics and sublime engineering represented by the pumpkin, there was a simple and as yet unsolved mystery facing us that morning. How would we get that oversized boulder into the airplane? No one had thought about this rather basic principle: the bomb had to be put into the plane before it could be dropped. A two-billion-dollar weapons system suddenly depended on a group of army officers and enlisted men who, although they were crackerjack ordnance men, didn’t know the difference between a neutron and an electron.
I introduced myself to the lieutenant and then took a few minutes to assess the situation. Inside the forward bomb bay, a truss had been rigged up to the shelves at the bottom of the bay with stanchions extending upward. At the top, crossbars had been welded diagonally from corner to corner with a hook in the center to hold the bomb on its side by an eyelet. Electric motors had been set into the four corners at the top of the stanchions, to which cables would be attached running from smaller hooks welded to four points on the pumpkin. Assuming that we could get the pumpkin into position under the bomb bay, I had some questions about the integrity of this system and the reliability of the hook. But first things first.
Because of the pumpkin’s five-foot diameter, we couldn’t roll it under the bomb bay with the bay doors open. Nor could we get it past the nosewheel to roll it into place down to the bomb bay. Either way, we didn’t have a five-foot clearance. The lieutenant and I came to a consensus that the only possible solution for the moment was to lift the nose off the ground and roll the pumpkin into place below the bomb bay. The ground crew found a large tarpaulin, which they draped over the vertical stabilizer on the tail section, being careful not to damage the elevators on the horizontal stabilizer. With the wheels securely chocked in place to prevent the airplane from rolling, six or eight men on either side of the tail pulled down on the ends of the tarp, the body of the aircraft pivoting on the wheels, the nose rising. Another group rolled the dolly with the pumpkin under the nose section and down to the forward bomb bay. The nose was then lowered, with the pumpkin positioned under the bomb bay. Rube Goldberg would have been proud.
Success, however, was far from certain. We still had to get the pumpkin up and connected to the hook. Each of the four motors at the corners of the stanchions had its own control. To lift this ten-thousand-pound globe, the four motors would have to lift simultaneously and at the same rate of speed in order to keep the pumpkin’s weight balanced. On our first try, a cable snapped in midair and the pumpkin went crashing to the ground. Laboriously, we repositioned the pumpkin and tried again. Finally we got it attached in the bomb bay. At this rate, it would be more efficient to roll the bomb to the target.
The solution was to build a concrete-lined pit with a hydraulic lift, like the lift at a gas station. The pumpkin would be loaded onto the lift and lowered into the pit. The airplane would be backed over the pit and the pumpkin would then be lifted up into the bomb bay. We made an emergency request to the Army Corps of Engineers to construct a pit to our specifications. It would be late November—approximately two months—before the pit was ready. In the meantime, I proceeded with my assignment to fly test drops of the pumpkins, and the ground crews became most adept at loading them with the system they had developed.
In late September, the crews of the 393rd bomber squadron found themselves in the middle of the Utah salt flats without a mission and with just one B-29 available to them. Tibbets briefed the crews, telling them that they were part of a highly secret project that could bring the war to a speedy end. He gave them no details about what that project was. Because there were no airplanes for them to fly yet, Colonel Tibbets immediately gave them ten days’ leave to go home. He told them this would be their last leave for a very long time, and he left them with one absolute rule—not now or ever were they to discuss the base, the airplanes, the training, or the fact that they were working on a project with anyone—including their families. Absolutely no one. Security was the single most important responsibility they had. It was also best if they didn’t ask too many questions. Any violation would be dealt with summarily and decisively.
It was already clear at that point that the defining characteristic of the project would be that nothing proceeded in orderly sequence. There was so much to do in such a limited time that details had to be worked out on a rolling basis. In fact, the official orders activating the top secret 509th Composite Group weren’t even issued until December 17, 1944. The breadth and complexity of the project and the time constraints were almost numbing. Organizational details were moving ahead on their own.
Wendover Field was ill equipped for the massive influx of men and machines that was under way. The field and its ancillary services, designed for a small contingent of fighters, were unsuitable for the demands of a heavy bomber group. By December, over eight hundred officers and other personnel had crowded into the existing facilities, and by the end of January 1945 the number had ballooned to over fifteen hundred. Colonel Tibbets had to create an entire self-contained and self-sustaining unit overnight—security, communications, staff support, armament, weather, photography, personnel, intelligence, cooks, bakers, and candlestick makers. Supplies had to be brought in and maintenance and facility improvements had to be made on an ongoing basis. All of this quickly made getting the 509th into operational shape a monumental challenge.
Then, once the organization had been put into motion and staffed, Tibbets had to select the crews, develop unique tactics for delivering an untested weapon that might never come to be, train the crews in the new tactics—and in the B-29, which was still undergoing design changes—develop a strategy to get the weapon to a target, and coordinate with scientists who were unsure if a functioning weapon could be delivered in time.
The clock was ticking, and the Japanese killing machine was continuing to inflict unimaginable horrors on American soldiers, marines, airmen, and sailors struggling in the Pacific at places like Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Tarawa, Saipan, Guam, Palau, and Leyte Gulf. Back at Wendover, we would hear of the atrocities our Allied prisoners of war were enduring. General Sherman’s oft-quoted “War is hell” failed to convey the depth of the horror. A more appropriate metaphor would have been Dante’s Inferno.
Failure for us, then, was simply not an option. Helping to end the war was the single focus of our entire effort.
A small group of civilian technicians and scientists operating under the code name Project Alberta were already at Wendover when I arrived. They served as liaison between Silverplate and the Manhattan Engineering District, a nondescript official designation for the Manhattan Project. The task of these civilians at this stage was to compile data on the flying characteristics of the pumpkin and test various fuses being developed at Los Alamos.
No ballistic tables for a bomb of this shape and weight yet existed. Thus it would be critical to measure the pumpkin’s flight after release to develop ballistic tables for bombing accuracy. If the bomb wobbled or tumbled in flight, no one would be certain where it would land. Such a problem could be solved by refining the design of the fins to assure a true and predictable arc after release. But the refinements could be determined only after repetitive drops on targets had been observed by the scientists. They could then calibrate not only the accuracy of the intended target but also the bomb’s flight through the air under varying conditions.
We had three bombing ranges: Target A, at Tonopah, Nevada, near the California border; Target B, at the Salton Sea in Southern California, about one hundred miles east of San Diego, where a large white raft was anchored at the southern end of an oval-shaped lake that ran north and south; and Target C, an abandoned army air corps range near Wendover. Observation posts were set up at each range incorporating photographic cameras using high-speed film and motion picture cameras to record the arc and speed of the bombs’ descent to the target. Perfecting the aerodynamics for a bomb of this weight and shape was difficult at first, especially because changes were being made to the interior and exterior tail section that affected the pumpkin’s shape and weight. Accurately dropping a ten-thousand-pound globular-shaped object from 30,000 feet presented its own set of technical barriers for those trying to harness the forces of the atom. A standard joke was that the safest place to set up the cameras and the observation crews was right on the bull’s-eye because that was the last place the pumpkin would hit.
After each drop, the Project Alberta staff would study the results and make incremental changes in the drop protocol or the fin design. Colonel Tibbets or a technician at the bomb-loading area would communicate to me the changes the scientists wanted us to make. They might request a new altitude at which to release the pumpkin or a change in our approach to the target—such as “up sun,” “down sun,” or “cross sun”—to allow for better observation. Mathematical data from these ballistic tests would be preloaded into the Norden bombsight tables for every speed and altitude of the B-29, allowing the bombardier to accurately drop the bomb. (When the time came to carry out live bomb drops, scientists would be on the planes over Hiroshima and Nagasaki to confirm the accuracy of the data they had compiled from these tests.)
During the months of October and November we also tested the fuses for the bomb. As any air crew would, my crew and I would have to have a perfect fuse. Nothing is more unsettling than a premature explosion of a conventional iron bomb under an aircraft. Of course, I was the only one on board who knew this was not going be anything close to a conventional bomb.
Shortly after we began the test drops, the scientists started to hang fuses on the pumpkin. The results were not encouraging. Sometimes the fuses worked, sometimes they didn’t. Unlike perfecting a stable flying configuration for the bomb itself, perfecting the fuses would remain a nagging problem right up to the day of my mission to Nagasaki. One incident occurred when I was on approach to Target C, still within visual range of the base. My bombardier, Captain Kermit Beahan, released the pumpkin at the aiming point for the designated target. The fuse detonated under the plane. If we had been carrying even a conventional bomb, we’d have been blown out of the sky.
My crew and I were at the pick-and-shovel level. We had barely any contact with the Alberta people, even after hours. I thought they were billeted in a hotel in Wendover, because I never saw them at the officers’ club or at any social functions on or off the base. I don’t know if this was by design or chance, but as I told my crew on day one, “This is something new we’re trying and that’s all the conversation there will be. Just do your jobs.”
The atmosphere of secrecy permeated every level of activity at the base. My crew never engaged in any conversation about the pumpkin. No one commented on it—not even innocuous comments about its size, shape, weight, what it might be, or where it might be used. This level of secrecy was very unusual for any group of men working together so closely. All incoming and outgoing mail and phone calls were monitored and censored by intelligence officers, regardless of anyone’s rank or position. Reminders of security were everywhere, from a poetic sign admonishing,
What You Hear Here
What You See Here
When You Leave Here
Let It STAY HERE!
to the less subtly posted restricted areas patrolled by heavily armed military police who conveyed a simple and potentially lethal message: Stay out unless you’re authorized to be here. The existence of our own military police company was, in fact, unheard of within a bomb group in the air force and added to the atmosphere of secrecy. They provided a very visible show of security, armed not only with standard-issue sidearms and Garand carbines but also with Thompson submachine guns and jeep-mounted .30-caliber machine guns. They weren’t there to break up barroom brawls.
As the influx of men and material continued through January 1945, barbed wire sprouted from the ground like tumbleweed that blew across the vast desert expanse that had become our home. More and more portions of the base became restricted areas, open only to authorized personnel bearing proper identification.
The only totally secure communications link with Los Alamos was by a single telephone line strung directly from Wendover to Los Alamos over the mountains. There was no regular telephone exchange. The line was patrolled by heavily armed security police. God help the fool who wandered near that line. The phone itself was the single phone in the secure, debugged room on the base. I later learned that the room had been lined with lead to prevent bugging or eavesdropping and that the phone was rarely unattended. Neither Wendover nor Los Alamos was ever referred to by name. Wendover was “Site K” and Los Alamos was “Site Y.” Scientists and our personnel going from Wendover to Los Alamos or to Wendover from Los Alamos never traveled directly. They would fly to Albuquerque and then go on to their destination by car or truck. Whenever our personnel went to Los Alamos via Albuquerque, they removed all insignia identifying them as army air corps and replaced it with Corps of Engineer insignia. Neither the casual observer nor a trained spy could draw any outward connection between the air force and the people at Los Alamos.
The B-29s wouldn’t arrive until December. By mid-October, B-17s were coming in so that the crews of the 393rd could begin practice bombing and navigational missions to keep their skills honed and be introduced to the demands of long-range navigation. Our actual B-29 missions could involve a three-thousand-mile round-trip flight over water, so navigational training became a high priority. Even a minute miscalculation could result in missing the intended destination by many miles, given the distances to target. By then it was pretty clear that if the mission were ever flown, it would be flown against the Japanese. The Germans were collapsing on both the western and eastern fronts in Europe.
Because of the suicidal defense the Japanese were mounting at each island assault, it was uncertain how close to Japan our base of operation would be. While General Eisenhower was beginning his breakout from the Normandy beachhead in France in June 1944, Admiral Nimitz was launching the invasion of Saipan, another stepping-stone drawing American ground and air forces closer to Japan. Of the 32,000 Japanese soldiers defending the island, 28,000 died in a futile attempt to beat back the overwhelming invasion force. Repeated suicidal banzai attacks by the Japanese inflicted massive casualties on the American forces—16,000 casualties, including 3,426 dead. When the battle was lost, hundreds of Japanese soldiers and civilians committed suicide rather than surrender and bring dishonor to themselves, their families, and their country. A month later, a few hundred more marines died in a nine-day battle taking a flyspeck of rock in the Mariana Islands called Tinian.
Later the marines and the army, supported by the navy, would take the strategic island of Iwo Jima, just 770 miles off the coast of Japan, at a cost of 27,000 American casualties, including over 6,000 dead. Hundreds of B-29 crews owed their lives to those marines and soldiers and sailors because disabled B-29s returning from missions over mainland Japan were able to make emergency landings at Iwo.
Shortly after my arrival at Wendover, Colonel Tibbets asked me to join him for a briefing he was to receive from operations analyst E. J. Workman, then president of the University of New Mexico. Dr. Workman had been developing a profile of Japanese fighter capabilities at high altitudes. Inside the secure room, Tibbets, the ever-present security officer, and I listened as Workman detailed the mathematical calculations and proofs that showed that at 30,000 feet, the Japanese Zero had a very limited capability to attack a target and fire accurately. After getting up that high, based on various aerodynamic principles, a Zero could make only one pass at a B-29 before being unable to maintain its altitude—in pilots’ terms, the fighter would literally run out of air to support the aircraft and fall out of the sky for not having sufficient lift. By the time the Zero could recover and make a second climb, the B-29, with its IAS (indicated airspeed) of over 250 miles an hour, would be long gone. The total time that the Zero would be on target would be less than one second, assuming the B-29 took no evasive action. To take evasive action would require maximum speed, maneuverability, and altitude. In other words, less weight. If we could make the airplane lighter, we could fly higher, faster, and with more maneuverability.
After the briefing Tibbets remarked in typical fashion, “Any pilot who can’t get out of the way for one second doesn’t belong in this outfit.”
After Dr. Workman left, the colonel asked my opinion about removing all the armament from the B-29—the turrets, guns, and ammunition—and leaving in just the 20mm cannon in the tail. He explained that the airplane would then be lighter by about seven thousand pounds, which would get us the increased speed, maneuverability, and altitude. This would be much more valuable to the safety of the crews than the guns. I told him I thought it was a terrific idea. Knowing the predisposition of bomber crews to rely on their guns against enemy fighters, Tibbets wondered what I thought the crews’ reaction would be.
“If you explain your reasoning,” I answered, “I’m sure they’ll see the advantages.”
He then asked me to meet with the pilots and “sell the idea to them.” I would be the stalking horse. If the men didn’t respond well, Tibbets would still be left with the option of trying another approach without having been directly confronted by dissent from the crews.
The 393rd had been reorganized into fifteen crews with three flight commanders in charge of five crews each. All of the pilots were intelligent men, and I believed that once they understood the science they would embrace the idea of removing the armament. I also believed that even at this early stage they respected Paul Tibbets’s ability and would accept the changes if he thought they were important. Tibbets could simply have ordered the changes made, but in this case, he was asking them to accept something radical and wanted them included in the process. In the end, the armaments would have to be removed if the mission were to have every chance for success.
From a personal standpoint I loved the idea because it would get rid of the forward gun turret, which took up a lot of space in the cockpit. As big as the cockpit was, the thought of its being more spacious and comfortable was music to my ears. Unlike Colonel Tibbets, I liked to move around during flight.
I decided that instead of calling a meeting of all fifteen pilots, a better approach would be to call together the three flight commanders. If they could be won over, they could take the idea back to their pilots. At first they hesitated. “How do we know what capability the Zero will have in the future?” “If they make the high-altitude improvements before our mission, we’ll be sitting ducks. Big sitting ducks.”
I let the conversation and debate continue so that everyone could get his thoughts out on the table. Then I set out the two key considerations.
“First, our mission could very well end the war,” I offered. “Removing the guns is just one of many risks we’ll be facing. Our job will be to get to the target, whatever and wherever it might be. If taking the armament off increases our chances, then based on what we know today, it’s the right decision.” No questions.
“Second,” I continued, “no one is a better strategist about the use of airplanes in combat than Colonel Tibbets. If he thinks this is a good idea, then we owe him the loyalty to make it work.” That pretty much ended the discussion—except for a unanimous vote.
Now that Tibbets had jumped that hurdle and avoided any reduction of confidence within the crews, he needed to determine if we could remove the turrets ourselves and patch the holes without ordering new airplanes. I had our engineering squadron remove the forward turret and make the necessary repair to the hole in the fuselage. Then I needed to test the strength of the patch when the cabin was pressurized at high altitudes. Taking the plane up to 30,000 feet could be both inconclusive and dangerous. Inconclusive because, even if we stayed up for hours, it would not mean that the patch was secure; we would need to stress the patch for an uninterrupted and extensive period of time. Dangerous because if it did blow, it could rip off a substantial piece of the fuselage.
The nearest modification center that had pressurization equipment was in Denver. I flew the B-29 to Denver, cruising at a minimum safe altitude, unpressurized. At Denver, the workers inserted hoses, sealed off all the doors and openings, and pressurized the interior of the airplane, bringing the pressure up to the equivalent of what it would be at 30,000 feet. In a few minutes the patch blew. End of experiment.
Tibbets decided that new airplanes would have to be manufactured with the turrets removed and other design changes built in on the assembly line. As long as new airplanes were going to be ordered, he wanted them equipped with the new Curtis Electric reversible propellers that would allow the plane to stop in a shorter distance on landing, with pneumatic bomb bay doors that snapped open and shut, thus decreasing air drag on the airplane, and with fuel injection for better fuel economy. These changes would prove to be critically important in helping me successfully complete my mission over Nagasaki and in saving the lives of my crew and me.
Having made the decision, Colonel Tibbets invoked “Silverplate” and asked Dayton to order twenty-five brand-new redesigned B-29s from Boeing. Boeing selected the Martin plant in Omaha for this production. Engineers worked around the clock to design the changes. When they were completed, Boeing inserted the new design into its assembly line.
The decision confirmed the total independence of the 509th for anyone who had any lingering question about it. Like General Frank Armstrong. On the military organizational chart, the 509th was “attached” to the 315th Bomb Wing under the command of General Armstrong, who had moved from Grand Island to Colorado Springs. The reality was that General Armstrong had no authority over the 509th and didn’t even know what it was training to do. When word of the redesign order got to his attention, he immediately injected himself and made it clear that he was going to Wendover to find out what “those guys” were doing. Given his experience with the Eighth Air Force in England and the losses sustained by his bomber command at the hands of the Luftwaffe’s Messerschmitts, the idea of removing the armament from the B-29s must have seemed insane. In short order he was unceremoniously told that he could not go to Wendover under any circumstances. And that was the end of that.
Except for two 20mm cannons in the tail, the 509th would go to war unarmed.