Trinity Site for Skywatch Friday

Keep Out!!!

The world's first atomic detonation took place at the Trinity Site on July 16, 1945. It's located at the northern end of the White Sands Missile Range in central New Mexico. You can take a tour there twice a year. We went in October 2007, when I took this photo.

The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass; and beyond there is a different country. ~J. Robert Oppenheimer.

One has to look out for engineers; they begin with sewing machines and end up with the atomic bomb. ~Marcel Pagnol

Be sure to go to the Skywatch Friday website to see photos of skies all over the world. You can see the week's photos any time after 2:30 EST on Thursday.

Facing Up to the Past: Visiting Trinity Site

Trinity Site is a long way from our house but the ride is gorgeous. We passed through all kinds of terrain—prairie, desert, mountains, and something that looked a lot like California before all the people came—on our way to and from White Sands.

Just before reaching the Stallion Gate we were met by some very friendly folks who gave us printed directions and a brochure. It turns out that they were counting people and pets in the cars headed out to the Trinity Site. I’m not sure why they keep track of the pets, but you can check out past counts at http://www.wsmr.army.mil/pao/TrinitySite/trnatt.htm. Then we came to the gate where the scrutiny was a little more intense. We presented our identification documents and were allowed through.

Once we got up to the parking lot, we were surrounded by groups of people who had been riding too long together in cars. We noted license plates from New Mexico, of course, and Colorado, Texas, New Hampshire (we left those people a note), Michigan, Montana, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Virginia, Idaho, and Illinois, and then we stopped keeping track because we were also too cranky from riding in the car.

Out to ground zero—it was a big disappointment. I would have thought that such a monumental event would have left behind more obvious evidence. There is just a slight circular depression, not a crater, as you might expect. The 1945 blast melted the desert sand into a green glassy substance called trinitite and the information I had seen implied that I would see plenty of it. However, the the government had apparently taken most of it away years ago so there was none to be seen. Apparently there is an area that contains some of the original trinitite in place, now covered over with sand, but it has a shed built around it that is no longer accessible. We saw lots of people crawling around looking for little bits that might be remaining, but no one seemed to be finding any. It’s illegal to pick it up—dangerous, too, as it is still radioactive.

Since I wasn’t finding the site itself interesting, I concentrated on the beautiful surrounding scenery and the people crowded around me. According to past figures, around 2800-3200 people attend these open houses. I was saddened to see some young kids who must have belonged to some kind of paramilitary organization tromping around in big boots and overlarge uniforms. Seeing them made me wonder if most visitors saw this whole atomic bomb thing as a tragedy of the greatest magnitude or as just another kind of theme park.

There wasn’t any ceremony, there weren’t any speeches—just a lot of tired, hot, crabby people shuffling around from historical marker to photo to bomb casing. Photography is allowed at the site, but not on the rest of the White Sands Missile Range. We left after taking lots of photos of the crowd and ground zero. I was relieved to be leaving, especially when I saw a group of what looked like Japanese tourists approaching the site. There was no right expression to put on my face, no way I could look them in the eye.

We headed off to San Antonio, to find the answer to a question that had long been bothering us. (Tomorrow: San Antonio).

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Trinitite: http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/hiroshimatrinity/trinitite.htm

Trinity Site: http://www.wsmr.army.mil/pao/TrinitySite/trnatt.htm

Duck and Cover! Memories of the Atomic Age

I want to say right up front that I am not a military history buff. I don't like war, I don't like killing, I don't like bombs. I don't like it when our country uses its power against other countries.

Having said all that, I am going to write about the Trinity Site on the White Sands Missile Range in the Tularosa Basin of southern New Mexico. This is where the first atomic bomb, results of the Manhattan Project, was detonated at 5:29:45 AM (Mountain Time) on July 16, 1945, bringing us the beginning, for better or for worse, of the atomic age. The second and third atomic bombs were exploded over Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, ultimately bringing the second World War to an end. The site of the detonation at White Sands is open to the public for a few hours twice a year, on the first Saturday of October and on the first Saturday of April.

Beez had long wanted to go see the Trinity Site. I was reluctant, thinking about exposure to radiation and just not wanting to have anything to do with the place. However, we agreed to take the trip and drove several hundred miles last Saturday to find out what the site was all about. Along the way, we talked about our memories of those times, and why there is such a fascination with this place.

Here are my memories of the bomb. I was less than a year old when the war ended, so I didn't know anything about that. But when I was 8 or 9 years old, my family lived in San Francisco in the early 1950s when atomic bomb tests were taking place in Nevada. My father drove a tow truck, working the night shift. I can remember my great excitement when he swung home to pick me up in the middle of the night when there were announced atomic tests at the Nevada Test Site at Frenchman Flat, about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. My mother made sure that I was dressed warmly and off we went into the San Francisco darkness. What an adventure for a little kid, being allowed out well after bedtime and with special time alone with Daddy! We always went right up to the top of Twin Peaks and Daddy would park the truck so that the nose was pointed southeast to face where he figured Las Vegas to be. Then he would turn on the radio to an AM station that would actually tune into the countdown to the detonation. Five, four, three, two, one... We'd wait a few seconds and then we would see it--a flash like lightning out on the horizon. And that was it. We'd drive down Twin Peaks for the highlight of the night, to my 8 year old self, stopping in at the Flying Saucer Cafe where we'd eat "dollar pancakes" and I'd have a cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream. So much innocence on the one hand, and so much potential death and harm and chaos on the other.

Here is what Beez had to say: When you grew up in the 1950s learning to hide under your desk in case of nuclear attack (!), you owed it to yourself to go see the place that started it all.

To get an idea of the fears we faced as school children, you must first realize that all school-age kids were required to wear engraved dog tags that gave their names, addresses, and blood type. Somehow the space for blood type was never filled in. Even as a child I understood that there probably wouldn't be enough of me left over after a bomb to worry about blood transfusions.

Then take a look at the instructional film called Duck and Cover. It was meant to reassure children about the bomb, so that they would know what to do if/when it came for them. The film is anything but comforting. Here is a sampling from the film of what young children were being told:

• We must be ready for a new danger...Tony knows the bomb can explode any time of the year, day or night...The flash of an atomic bomb can come at any time...vacations and holiday time...we must be ready
  
• Sometimes the bomb might explode without any warning


• You might be eating your lunch when the flash comes


• If you are not ready and do not know what to do it could hurt you in different ways


• There might not be any grownups around when the bomb explodes, then you're on your own.


• [The bomb can come] on a beautiful spring day...but no matter where [children] go or what they do they must always try to remember what to do if the atomic bomb explodes right then. It's a bomb! Duck and cover!


• You'll know when it comes.

Call it morbid fascination, but we were on our way. (Tomorrow: Visiting the Trinity Site).

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Duck and Cover: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0K_LZDXp0I

Manhattan Project: http://www.mbe.doe.gov/me70/Manhattan/index.htm

Nevada Test Site Historical Information: http://www.ntshf.org/index.htm

Trinity Site: http://www.wsmr.army.mil/pao/TrinitySite/trinst.htm

White Sands Missile Range: http://www.wsmr.army.mil/