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size of a softball, Plutonium core surrounded by 5,300 lbs of high explosives; plutonium core reduced to size of tennis ball, Efficiency of weapon: 10 times that of Little Boy, Approximately 1 kilogram of plutonium fissioned, Explosive force: 21,000 tons of TNT equivalent, Delivery:  B-29 Bockscar piloted by Maj. Charles Sweeney. Creating an area of complete devastation approximately two miles in diameter, the bomb, with its resulting shock wave and firestorm, effectively destroyed around 4.7 square miles of the city, killing 70,000-80,000 and injuring another 70,000. While this approach proved promising for uranium-based bombs, it was less so for those utilizing plutonium. Marco Margaritoff is a Staff Writer at All That Is Interesting. The final design measured 10 feet long and 28 inches in diameter. Note the signatures on the tail assembly, “A Second Kiss for Hirohito!” Signed by Rear Admiral W.R. Purnell, USN, on the side of Fat Man, Signatures on Fat Man's tail assembly. For more information, see The Science Behind the Atom Bomb. Little Boy was never tested before it was dropped on Hiroshima but the scientists behind it were confident that it would work. Approximately 60% of this was formed into the projectile, which was a cylinder with a four-inch hole through the middle. Naval cruiser, transported the parts to Tinian Island south of Japan. The bomb was 10 feet long and 28 inches in diameter and its explosive force was the equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT. When detonated, the projectile would be propelled down the barrel by a tungsten carbide and steel plug and would create a super-critical mass of uranium at impact. Once assembled, “Little Boy” weighed 9,700 pounds, approximately 140 of which was uranium fuel. Because uranium-235 was known to be fissionable, it was the first material pursued in the approach to bomb development. National ArchivesThe cloud caused by the blast of Little Boy. The first approach pursued by the project was the use of enriched uranium to create a weapon, as this material was known to be fissionable. Getty ImagesU.S. The last of the Little Boy units were removed from the inventory in January 1951. The resulting uranium mass comprised of both projectile and target becomes critical and the chain reaction begins. Bernard Hoffman/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images A man surveys the ruins of Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. The remaining 40% comprised the target which was a solid spike measuring seven inches long with a diameter of four inches. A man surveys the ruins of Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. The pilot of the B-29 “Enola Gay” on the mission to bomb Hiroshima was Paul Tibbets, then a colonel and commander of the 509th Composite Group tasked with dropping the atomic bombs. Once the two collided, they formed an unstable element and the nuclear reactions that followed resulted in an atomic explosion. Fires raged roughly two miles from the site of impact. Note the MPs keeping guard, Once alignment is complete, Fat Man is lowered into the pit. On July 14, several completed bomb units and the uranium projectile were shipped by train from Los Alamos to San Francisco. How, exactly, they would develop such an unprecedented weapon had yet to be determined. Alongside the overwhelming amount of Japanese citizens who had no idea what would befall them seconds later was most of the crew of the Enola Gay. As a result, the core component of the bomb was a smoothbore gun barrel through which the uranium projectile would be fired. Three days after Hiroshima was reduced to an inferno, a minimum of 39,000 people in Nagasaki experienced the same fate as Fat Man detonated over their home. The vast majority of the work came in the form of the isotope enrichment of the uranium necessary for the weapon, since uranium-235 makes up only 1 part in 140 of natural uranium. The crew on Tinian Island loads Little Boy into the. Tour some of the key locations of the Manhattan Project with an audio guide. But it wrought far worse devastation. Little Boy was never tested before it was dropped on Hiroshima but the scientists behind it were confident that it would work. Note the signatures on the tail assembly and the "bomb" on the worker's shirt, Fat Man is lowered on to a transport dolly for the trip to the airfield. Around the same time, scientists began experimenting with various bomb prototypes at the Los Alamos Design Laboratory in New Mexico. Little Boy, the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan, in August 1945. By July 1944, the bulk of the research was focused on the plutonium designs and the uranium gun-type bomb was less of a priority. Also, due to its relatively simplistic design, Birch's team felt that only smaller-scale, laboratory tests were necessary to prove the concept. He has appeared on The History Channel as a featured expert. From there, the USS Indianapolis, a heavy U.S. In 1947, the U.S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance built 25 Little Boy assemblies though by the following year there was only enough fissionable material to arm ten. As the first design developed (as well as the first deployed for combat), it is sometimes known as the Mark I. The research team at Los Alamos was headed by theoretical physicist Robert Oppenheimer, who has since been dubbed “the father of the atomic bomb.”. An explosive nuclear chain reaction occurs when a sufficient quantity of nuclear fuel, such as uranium or plutonium, is brought together to form a critical mass. He told Tibbets he would assemble most of the bomb before take off, but then Tibbets and his crew would have to complete it while en route to Hiroshima. What followed this was a fireball that ran at 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Wikimedia Commons Little Boy, the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan, in August 1945. Perhaps most terrifying was the fact that Little Boy was considered an inefficient weapon because it only used 1.38 percent of its fissionable materials. Kennedy Hickman is a historian, museum director, and curator who specializes in military and naval history. With the decision to use the weapon against the Japanese, Hiroshima was selected as the target and Little Boy was loaded aboard the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay. As one of the crew members of the Enola Gay mused, “I hope there will never be another. Why was "Little Boy," the 8,000lb atomic bomb, dropped on Hiroshima in 1945? (I'm doing a research paper on Hiroshima, and I just need a few ideas. Of these, it is believed that only 20,000 were members of the Imperial Japanese Army. info@nuclearmuseum.org          Contact Us. Wikimedia Commons Col. Groves and Robert Oppenheimer, the two heads of the Manhattan Project. One victim, who was seated 850 feet away from the center of Little Boy’s impact, was reduced to only a shadow as the stone steps around them were bleached by the tremendous heat. Oppenheimer’s team knew that enriched uranium-235 was the key to creating the reactions necessary to construct a functional nuclear bomb. Little Boy was the first atomic bomb used against Japan in World War II and was detonated over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. But I’m not sure that we have.”. The first bomb, which was dropped over Hiroshima, was codenamed “Little Boy” as it was the smaller of the two weapons. U.S. Air ForceThe Boeing B-29 Superfortress, Enola Gay, that carried Little Boy. Here they were embarked aboard the cruiser USS Indianapolis. Dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, it was the second nuclear weapon used in a war. Leading the design team for the gun-type weapon, Lieutenant Commander Francis Birch succeeded in convincing his superiors that the design was worth pursuing if only as a back-up in case the plutonium bomb design failed. Getty ImagesThis woman was left with burn marks on her skin in the pattern of the kimono she had been wearing. America officially entered the war following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, but two years earlier, it had already begun the covert Manhattan Project, which was a $2 billion program tasked with developing the atomic bomb. Fat Man being lowered and checked on transport dolly for airfield trip. The cloud caused by the blast of Little Boy. Delivery:  B-29 Enola Gay piloted by Col. As a result, the scientists at Los Alamos began developing an implosion design for a plutonium-based bomb as this material was relatively more plentiful. Commander A. Francis Birch (left) assembles the bomb while physicist Norman Ramsey watches. Moving into production, the weapon, minus its uranium payload, was completed in early May. Pushing forward, Birch's team produced specifications for the bomb design in February 1945. Dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, it was the first nuclear weapon used in a war. Capt. This woman was left with burn marks on her skin in the pattern of the kimono she had been wearing. This caused a problem in 1946 when a shortage of plutonium for new weapons led to the need to construct several uranium-based bombs as a stopgap. In total, Little Boy was carried in three separate caravans. One was Little Boy, which operated not unlike a gun but on a nuclear scale. Fat Man, on the other hand, was an implosion-type device that used plutonium instead of uranium. This mass was to be contained by a tungsten carbide and steel tamper and neutron reflector. This silent footage, in both color and black and white, shows the preparation of the “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” atomic bombs on Tinian Island. Thus, in July 1945, trains transported Little Boy’s components from Los Alamos, New Mexico, to San Francisco. Even though the United States was late to enter World War II, it was the one to introduce a weapon that could end it. In this gun-type device, the critical mass is achieved when a uranium projectile which is sub-critical is fired through a gun barrel at a uranium target which is also sub-critical. Bernard Hoffman/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images. The bomb was 10 feet long and 28 inches in diameter and its explosive force was the equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT. Once all the components of the two atomic bombs were safely secured on Tinian Island, U.S. Navy Captain William S. Parsons was tasked with assembling and loading Little Boy onto a rigorously modified B-29 bomber piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets. ThoughtCo uses cookies to provide you with a great user experience. Commanded by Colonel Paul Tibbets, Enola Gay took off on August 6 and rendezvoused with two additional B-29s, which had been loaded with instrumentation and photographic equipment, over Iwo Jima. This building became the city’s peace memorial after renovation. The footage also depicts the mushroom cloud above Nagasaki. Titanoboa Was The 50-Foot Prehistoric Snake Of Nightmares, Woman Dies After Accidentally Being Embalmed Alive, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch. Boeing B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay" landing after the atomic bombing mission on Hiroshima, Japan, 1945. Dubbed the Mark I (Model 1850) and code-named "Little Boy," the bomb's uranium was not available until July. It was July 26, 1945. This was the first time in human history that nuclear weapons were used in warfare. After a 10-day journey at high speed covering 5,000 miles, the USS Indianapolis arrived. While most of the work on this project was done in a secret lab in Los Alamos, New Mexico, additional facilities were established in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Chicago; Washington state; and British Columbia. Delivered to Tinian in the Marianas, the first Little Boy was carried to its target by the B-29 Superfortresses Enola Gay flown by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr. of the 509th Composite Group. At least another 60,000 would be dead by the end of the year from the effects of radioactive fallout.

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