How to load an Atomic Bomb.

[Rusty Heap]

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

[IROC]

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...

[Jolly Amaranto]

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.

[sand_man]

Very interesting!!!

From a slightly different era, but here's how to ride one:

[sc_rufctr]

Fascinating... Thanks for posting.

[mjohnson]

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.

[afterburn 549]

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

[GWN7]

Originally Posted by afterburn 549

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

[Rusty Heap]

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:

[Jolly Amaranto]

Some pencil rubbings I made of the plaques on Tinian. Might be a little easier to read than the photos I posted earlier.

[Rinty]

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.