The Wilmington morning star., 1945-08-12
ATOMIC BOMB MAIN
REASON FOR OFFER
Continued from Page One)

Sweeney, North Quincy, Mass.
The men in that superfort had
ridden over the Honshu arsenal
city of Hiroshima in an observa-
ton plane Monday and watched re-
suits of the first Atomic attack
by "Enola Gay" piloted by 1t.
Colo. Paul w. Tibbets, Jr., Miami,
Fla. But, in their first interview
today, they said that even though
they were forewarned what to ex-
pect, results OF the Nagasaki at
tack were beyond possible be-
lief"
The crew disclosed that if it
had not been for bad weather,
thousands of Japanese in Nagasaki,
a city of 252,63O in northwestern
Kyushu, might still be alive to.
day. The plane made three runs
over another unidentified city
originally scheduled for attack but
bad weather prevented the assault
and Nagasaki was selected as
secondary target.
The resultant loss of gasoline
maneuvering over the first city
made it necessary for Sweeney to
make an emergency landing on
Okinawa instead of flying back to
the Marianas.
Brig. Gen. Thomas Farrell, AL
bany, N. Y, chief of the Marianas
Atomic bomb project, said success
of the Nagasaki raid had outdated
the type of bomb used against Hiro-
shima.
"The function Of the bomb used
against Nagasaki made the one
used against Hiroshima obsolete,
he said. 1.-The one type used against
Hiroshima was discarded in favor
of the Nagasaki type"
He said that his men were going
on the assumption that the bomb
might have to be used again, and
that hundreds of technicians were
assembling component parts
brought brought to this base from
the United States.
Officials said they believed
Sweeney's bomb scored a direct
hit in the heart of the great Nit
subishi steel works in Nagasaki,
and that the resultant blast Quilted
most Of the city. Observers said
debris from the steel plant scared
up in a thick column of smoke.
Gan official announcement from
Gen. Carl Spaatz' U. S. strategic
Air Forces Headquarters had said
that almost a square mile of Maya
saki's built-up area of 3.3 square
miles had been destroyed)
WASHINGTON, Aug. IL U.H -
The Atomic bombs which wrought
cataclysmic destruction upon Hiro-
shima and Nagasaki were relative
ly harmless-a slight Improvement
would have made them weapons
of such unimaginable power as to
threaten the end of the world.
The War Department revealed
the mind-numing potentialities OF
the Atomic bomb tonight in a
technical report on the five years
Of experimentation which produced
it. The report was written by DR..
H. D. Smyth, head of the Princeton
University physics department and
one of the Atom bombs progeni'
tors.
DR.. Smyth gave a detailed &C
count of the scientific development
of the bomb. In the course OF the
groups experiments, he said, two
new chemical elements were de-
veloped-neptunium and plutonium
He revealed that plutonium wa:
an especially useful element ane
that it's production already has
been begun in government-ownee
plants. for security reasons. now
ever, he gave no detailed accom-
of how the new element Will 81
used.
He disclosed that the Atom bomt
in it's present state OF lmper1ec
ton releases only one-tenth OF ON
percent of the total energy poten
TALLY releasable in the splitting
uranium Atoms.
Should the bomb be improved
only slightly, Smyth said, "clvl
lization would have the means t.
commit suicide at will"
But even a partial unlocking o
2 the Atoms power-the same KIM
Of power that keeps the sun AM
stars burning-let looses forces 81
terrible that the men who mad
} the bomb were unwilling to give
free play-even against the Japa
nese.
DR.. Smyth disclosed that 1t wa
necessary to devise means Of ex
ploding the bomb above, rattle
than on. its target to assure d s
persal OF deadly radioactive by