On 6th and 9th August 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively, a dark turn of events in world history. What is relatively less known, however, is that a third atomic bomb targeting still another Japanese city lurked in the shadows during the endgame of the Manhattan Project.
At its peak, the Manhattan Project was the largest secret enterprise in history, spread over three corners of the nation with three sites: Hanford in Washington State, Los Alamos in New Mexico, and Oak Ridge in Tennessee. It produced the first nuclear weapons used in combat: “Little Boy,” which was dropped on Hiroshima, and “Fat Man,” which was detonated over Nagasaki.
It turned out that a third bomb was under assembly, with the plutonium core that would later become infamous as the “demon core” prepared for the “third shot” against Japan in late August 1945. That assembly halted as the tide had changed with the surrender of Japan given the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and with the stunning declaration of war by the Soviet Union, once bound by the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact.
August 9, 1945, marked the real doomsday in world history when Nagasaki was bombed with a nuclear bomb named “Fat Man.” The weapon was developed by scientists and engineers working at Los Alamos Laboratory with plutonium supplied from the Hanford Site, dropped from the B-29 Superfortress Bockscar piloted by Major Charles Sweeney. During the detonations of the bombs, a fission of about 1 kilogram of the 6.19 kilograms of plutonium present in the pit released an energy equal to detonating 21 kilotons of TNT.
After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the demon core destined for the third bomb had its fate redirected to tragic experiments rather than wartime use. Within a year of Japan’s surrender, two physicists succumbed to radiation poisoning from the demon core and died prematurely. The criticality experiments at Los Alamos National Laboratory finally ended. It became radioactive for the purpose it was meant for, after which it got melted down, material being used in new warheads.
The unexpended third bomb now stands as a grim specter of what could have continued to extend the catalog of horror and bequest legacies still dissected and understood today. It’s recalled from this atom triad, the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the third that never was, that scientific leaps stridden by this era and alongside it pose very tough ethical dilemmas. It is the Manhattan Project that shall etch itself in the annals of American history as an event monumental by any standards, still echoing with questions through the decades and reminding us of the power and peril held in hands that dare to split the atom.