How to load an Atomic Bomb.
 

Very cool old behind the scenes photos of Little Boy and Fat Man, our first Atomic Bombs, in testing, assy, and loading into aircraft:


Interesting they keep referring to the simply as "the Device".


http://www.alternatewars.com/Bomb_Loading/Bomb_Guide.htm

Fascinating stuff. I'm sitting just a mile or so as the crow flies from the Graphite Reactor where the plutonium for that project was originally created...

In 1967 I had a summer job on Tinian. The bomb loading pits were filled in at that time and only these markers were at the site.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1407178423.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1407178497.jpg

Very interesting!!!

From a slightly different era, but here's how to ride one:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/snTaSJk0n_Y" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Fascinating... Thanks for posting.

Fascinating photos.

A friend of mine did some diving off of Tinian a year or so back to look for all of the leftover bomb and test components that were literally bulldozed off of the edge of the island. Much of the stuff was still in good shape!

They're slowly restoring some of the historic assembly facilities here in Los Alamos that were used on those two bombs. One day it all may be a Nat'l Historic Park - I assume Tinian will be included too.

Dont we have a few missing? (Colorado)
And some suit case "DIRTY BOMBS? AWOL? ( Lost)

There has been a bunch of them go missing. They dropped one on Savannah in 1956....never found it. I tell my buddy who lives there that the government was trying to kill him back then. :)

Great pictures

A Nuclear Needle in a Haystack: The Cold War's Missing Atom Bombs - SPIEGEL ONLINE

start at the :45 second mark, and at 1 minute look at the blast scale compared to the large WWII aircraft carrier that gets hit hard broadside by the pressure wave from up close:


https://vimeo.com/10824245

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1407256496.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1407256533.jpg
Some pencil rubbings I made of the plaques on Tinian. Might be a little easier to read than the photos I posted earlier.

Rusty:

Very interesting. Thanks for posting.

During a visit to Micronesia in the early eighties, one of our flights was over Tinian, and we could see the airfield.