Is Eric Phelps Correct YOU JUDGE FOR YOURSELF
Eric Phelps claims that the war with Japan and within Vietnam was to remove the threat of the growing number of Buddhist from not being under the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. -D'Anne Burley Host of the D'Anne Burley Show featured on truthradio.com
The information herein is just to evaluate the facts in history and timelines to see if his facts are real and lets the reader judge for himself the facts based on the opinions of others facts and documents which may or may not show a fact full truth of the real conspiracies and who are indeed behind them.
Nagasaki History - Medieval era
Founded before 1500, Nagasaki was originally a secluded harbour village. It enjoyed little historical significance until contact with European explorers in 1542, when a Portuguese ship accidentally landed nearby, somewhere in Kagoshima prefecture. The zealous Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier arrived in another part of the territory in 1549, but left for China in 1551 and died soon afterwards. His followers who remained behind converted a number of daimyo (feudal lords). The most notable among them was Omura Sumitada, who derived great profit from his conversion through an accompanying deal to receive a portion of the trade from Portuguese ships at a port they established in Nagasaki in 1571 with his assistance.In 1587, Nagasaki's prosperity was threatened when Toyotomi Hideyoshi came to power. Concerned with the large Christian influence in southern Japan, he ordered the expulsion of all missionaries. Omura had given the Jesuits partial administrative control of Nagasaki, and the city now returned to Imperial control.
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Fr. Johannes Siemes, SJ, a professor of philosophy at Sophia University in Tokyo, was one of a number of German Jesuits working in Japan during World War II. In 1945, American B-29s were stepping up bombing missions against Japanese cities. Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, and particularly Tokyo were being hard hit by nighttime incendiary raids and daytime high explosive raids. The mounting danger had prompted the Japanese
government to evacuate many of Tokyo's residents; Siemes and his st
udents had left the city for the relative safety of the Jesuit novitiate, where the Jesuits' future superior general, Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ, was rector. The location was just outside Hiroshima.
We offer our readers Siemes's account of the events of August 6, 1945, first published in Jesuit Missions magazine, March 1946, vol. 20, no. 2.
FOR A LONG TIME the people of Hiroshima wondered why they alone were not being pounded by American bombs. Almost daily observation planes flew overhead. Occasionally bombs fell, but they did little damage-nothing in comparison with what was happening in other Japanese cities. Fantastic rumors circulated wildly that America had something special in store for us, but no one dreamed of the reality that was to come.
August the 6th dawned bright and clear. About seven o'clock there was an air-raid alarm. A few planes appeared over the city, but no one paid any attention. About eight o'clock, the "all-clear" signal was sounded. I was sitting in my room at the Jesuit novitiate in Nagatsuka, about two and a half miles from the center of Hiroshima, half way up the side of a mountain, overlooking the bright valley which stretches down to the sea. Suddenly-the time was approximately 8:14 -- the whole valley was filled by a garish light, like a magnesium flash by a giant photographer.
All at once I became conscious of a wave of heat, but could see only a brilliant yellow light. As I made for the door, perhaps ten seconds after the first f
lash of light, I heard a moderately loud explosion which seemed to come from directly over our house. Instantly all the windows in the house were broken. Fragments of glass were sprayed all over me. In no time I was bleeding from cuts about the hands and head. Everything around me was confusion-all the windows broken, all the doors forced in, and book shelves tumbled down. Most of the other Jesuits were injured by fragments of glass. A few were bleeding, but none seriously so.
Down in the valley a half mile away, several peasant homes caught fire. Over the city clouds of smoke were rising, and I heard a few indistinct explosions. Perhaps a half an hour later, a long file of desperate people began to stream up the valley from the city. Some came to our house, their steps heavy and dragging, their faces blackened, all of them bleeding or suffering from burns, some with horrible wounds of the extremities and back. We brought them into the chapel, put them to rest on the straw mats, and gave them all the aid we could, but our small supply of grease was soon used up. Fr. [Pedro] Arrupe, our rect
or, had studied medicine before becoming a Jesuit and was everywhere among the injured as long as the bandages and drugs lasted, but at length we had to be content merely to cleanse the wounds, as more and more of the injured came pouring in to us.
BY NOON our large chapel and library were filled, but the procession of refugees from the city continued. Among them was Fr. [Peter] Kopp, bleeding about the head and neck, and with a large burn on his right palm. He
was standing in front of the convent of the Helpers of the Holy Souls at the outskirts of the city ready to go home when all of a sudden he became aware of a light, felt the wave of heat and a large blister forming on the palm of his hand. He thought the bomb had fallen on his immediate vicinity. Fire
broke out at once all around him so that there was time to rescue only a few things from the convent before the whole district was swept by flames. He and the Sisters had to fight their way back to us along the shore of the river and throu
gh the burning streets.
Soon news came that the entire city had been destroyed, that the whole city was on fire. Outside, the roads were jammed with burned, bleeding,
frightened people. Among them there were many who were uninjured. Distraught by the magnitude of the disaster, they rushed by without a thought of organizing help for the others. It became clear to us later that the Japanese displayed little initiative, preparedness, and organizational skill in meeting this catastrophe. They despaired of any rescue work when something could have been saved
by cooperative effort, and fatalistically they let the catastrophe take its course. When we urged them to take part in the rescue work, they did everything we told them willingly, but on their own they did very little.
Down in the center of the city we knew that Fr. [Hugo] LaSalle, our superior, and three of the Fathers were trapped. About four o'clock in the afternoon, we learned that the church, the parish house, and the adjoining buildings
had all burned down, and that Fr. LaSalle and Fr. [Wilhelm] Schiffer had been seriously injured and were unable to walk. Six of us hurried with Fr. Rector down to the city. The closer we got to the city, the greater the destruction, and the more difficult it became to make our way. Twice we were forced down into the river itself to escape the flames.
A LARGE NUMBER of the people had taken refuge in the park, though all the paths and bridges were blocked by fallen trees. Fires still flared up in the distance giving out an eerie light, but finally at the far corner of the park on the river bank itself, we came upon our colleagues. Fr. Schiffer was lying on the ground, deathly pale. He had lost so much blood from a deep cut behind his ear that we feared for his life. Fr. Superior had a deep wound on
his leg. Fr. [Hubert] Cieslik and Fr. [Wilhelm] Kleinsorge had minor injuries but were completely exhausted.
Bit by bit they told us of their experiences. At a quarter after eight, they saw the intense light, and immediately heard the sound of breaking windows, walls and furniture. They were showered with glass splinters and fragments of wreckage. Fr. Schiffer was buried beneath a portion of wall and suffered a se
vere head injury. Fr. Superior was sprayed with splinters in his back and legs which made him bleed copiously. They, too, had the impression that the bomb burst in their immediate vicinity. All the buildings around them collapsed at once, and from every pile of ruins there arose piteous cries for help. Frs. LaSalle and Schiffer, despite their wounds, aided as many as they could and lost a great deal of blood in the process, but when fire
s swept closer and closer, they had to flee for their lives.
Mr. Fukai, secretary of the mission, went almost out of his mind and would not leave the scene until Fr. Kleinsorge dragged him out of the house on his back and forcibly carried him away. Beneath the wreckage of houses all along the streets many were trapped and screamed to be rescued. They were beyond hope, for the flames would be upon them before anyone could dig them out of the
ruins. Mr. Fukai refused to go further, and has not been heard from since.
We were fortunate to have a rescuing angel who saved us-a Japanese Protestant pastor [Rev. Kiyoshi Tanimoto of the Hiroshima Methodist Church, according to John Hersey in a New York Times article] came by in a boat and insisted on taking our wounded upstream to safety. Fr. Schiffer, who was more seriously wounded, was taken first. Several children were rescued from the river on the way, but soon died. They had been severely burned. Fr. Cieslik off
ered to go home by foot to make room for others in the boat.
By midnight we were still working, caring for the wounded and trying to carry our own back to Nagatsuka [the novitiate]. Wires, beams, ruins, and rubble blocked every street and every passage. In the dark it was impossible to see. Again and again we fell, carrying the stretchers with us to the ground. Fr. Schiffer became unconscious. Fr. LaSalle joked each time he fell,
though it must have been very painful because his back was full of fragments of glass. The expedition had taken almost twelve hours. Normally we could have gone into the city and back in two hours. Early in the morning I had two hours' sleep, then said Mass in thanksgiving, for it was the 7th of August, the anniversary of the restoration of the Society of Jesus.
The next day was s
pent rescuing victims along the roads. There were no rescue parties in evidence
anywhere in the city. People we had helped to safety the day before were sitting and lying in the same places we had put them. More than 30 hours passed before the first official rescue party arrived.
By the time we got back to Nagatsuka it was dark again. We had with us 50 refugees, most of whom were wounded, many of them dangerously burned, all of them, even those with less serious burns, very weak and helpless. Our relief work was a greater boost for Christianity in the eyes of the people than all our work in the preceding long years. Few of those whom we cared for died. In the official aid station a good third or a half of those who had been brought
in died. They lay about almost without care-everything was lacking, doctors, assistants, dressings, drugs, etc.
THE MAGNITUDE OF THE DISASTER that befell Hiroshima on August 6th was only slowly pieced together in my mind. What happened, now that I have a chance to see the whole picture, is this: As a result of the explosion of the bomb at 8:15 almost the entire city was destroyed at a single blow. Only small outlying districts in the southern and eastern part of the town escaped complete destruction. The bomb exploded over the center of the city. As a result of the blast, small Japanese houses which made up 99 percent of the buildings in the city collapsed at once or were blown away. Those who were in the h
ouses were buried in the ruins. Those who were in the open sustained burns, resulting from contact with a substance or rays emitted by the bomb. When the substance struck in quantity, fire sprang up and spread rapidly. The heat which arose from the ground was so intense as to create a minor whirlwind sweeping the fire across the whole city. Those who had been caught beneath the ruins could not be freed in time to escape. Up to three miles from the center of the explosion, all houses were damaged, and many collapsed and caught fire. Even seven miles away windows were broken.
How many people fell victims of this one bomb? Hiroshima had a population of 400,000. Official statistics up to September 1st place the number of dead at 70,000, 130,000 wounded, among them 43,500 seriously so, and many thousands missing.
Thousands of wounded who died later could have been saved if they had received proper treatment, but there was no adequate rescue work during that catastrophe. Many of the wounded died because they had been weakened by undernourishment. Those who had normal strength and who had received good care slowly recovered from the burns occasioned by the Atomic bomb. There were also cases of wounded people, however, who started to recover and then died suddenly. Some who had only small external burns died within a week after inflammation of the pharynx and mouth.
Several cases are known to me personally where individuals, who did not have any external burns, later died. Frs. Kleinsorge and Cieslik, who were near the center of the explosion, were badly cut but did not suffer any burns.
Fourteen days after the explosion, their simple cuts had healed normally, but the ones which were still unhealed became worse, and in October were still incompletely healed. There cannot be any doubt but that the rays, whatever they were, had some effect on the blood. I am of the opinion, however, that the general undernourished and weakened condition of so many people was apparently responsible for the large number of deaths. It was rumored that the ruined city would emit deadly rays for some time. I doubt that, because I myself and many others who worked in the ruined area for several hours after the explosion suffered no ill effects whatsoever.
It was an incredible catastrophe, and yet almost strangest of all, the Japanese people here showed no bitterness toward America. Great good can yet be brought out of all this tragedy, and of all the nations on earth today, America is in the best position to help us lead these people to the knowledge, love, and service of the one true God.
To understand the change in thinking among Nagasaki Christians, one has to know a bit of Catholic history in Japan and the victim-mentality which the Church developed through centuries of persecution.
Christianity first came to Japan in 1549 with St. Francis Xavier. By 1597 a clear anti-Christian spirit and persecution had emerged. That year marked the crucifixion of the 26 Holy Martyrs on a hill in Nagasaki (where a public shrine in their honor now draws many visitors annually). This group of martyrs, composed of six Franciscans, three Jesuits and 17 lay persons (Secular Franciscans), had been forced on a month-long march from the city of Kyoto, where
their faces were mutilated. Then, paraded from city to city, they were led to Nagasaki and crucified. From this period until 1889, Christians of Japan suffered recurring persecutions, compelling great numbers to go underground. In fact, large concentrations of “secret Christians” lived in the Nagasaki r
egion.
By 1945 the Nagasaki community of Roman Catholics, the descendants of these hidden Christians, formed the largest Catholic colony in Japan. Ironically, they inhabited the Urakami valley, which is the district of Nagasaki over which the atomic bomb exploded. The bomb killed nea
rly 9,600 of the 12,000 Catholics who lived near the hypocenter of the blast, leaving 70,000 people dead altogether. Their beloved church, the Urakami Cathedral, the largest Catholic church in the Orient, was utterly destroyed. Two priests hearing confessions at the time, along with dozens of penitents, were killed when the church collapsed on top of them.
Given the Nagasaki Christians’ long history of being a martyr Church, it is not totally surprising if many looked upon the bomb itself as part of their ongoing martyrdom.Father Jose Aguilar, a Mexican Jesuit who has spent some 20 years in Nagasaki and teaches at Nagasaki University, explained that the "martyr interpretation" of the bombing was greatly influenced by the teaching of Takashi Nagai, a Catholic doctor and writer who died from leukemia six years after being exposed to the Nagasaki bomb.
Father Aguilar summed up that teaching in this way: “Whatever happens, happens with the approval of God. Why did God approve of the deaths of Nagasaki Christians? The answer is simple, according to Dr. Nagai: God was looking for victims of reparation for the atrocities of WWII. And who else coold play that role better than the Lord’s well-known martyrs of Nagasaki?”
This sense of being sacrificial offerings for the sake of peace and to compensate for the sins of others seems to have led the Nagasaki Catholics to a kind of passive attitude toward the bomb and even toward their Christian call to be peacemakers. Pope John Paul II’s visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki completely turned this around, in a dramatic way, the Nagasaki Christians—and others—were set free from this passive-martyr stance by the Pope’s peace statement.
At Hiroshima’s Memorial Cenotaph, February 25, 1981, the Pope delivered a peace appeal which made a tremendous impact on the Japanese nation as a whole and upon Nagasaki Catholics in particular. John Paul II’s address opened with the words: “War is the work of human beings.” Those words had a truly liberating effect on those who might be tempted to idenhfy the atomic bombings as the work of God, The Pope insisted further that “human beings who wage war can also successfully make peace” and that all should “renew our faith in the
capacity of human beings to do what is good,... to turn disaster into a new beginning. In face of the man-made calamity that every war is, one must affirm again and again that the waging of war is not inevitable or unchangeable. Humanity is not destined to self-destruction.”
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can this be fact or just a conpiracy there is more to this than what meets the eye!
All the trouble in Japan started in 1549!!
Jesuits in Japan. Japanese representation from the 16th century. | All the trouble in Japan start ed exactly 400 years prior to the beginning of World War II in 1939. That was the year that Jesuit Francis Xavier entered Japan with his counterfeit"Christianity." The Japanese Emperor, Daimyo Nobunaga, welcomed him and gave him carte blanche to spread his false "gospel" throughout Japan. The Emperor soon learned however that Jesuit "missions" were just a pretext for a later military conquest by Spain and Portugal. It would be a repetition of what happened to the native populations in the New World who were decimated by these Conquistador "converters." The Japanese did not possess the advanced weapons of the European nations and would soon have ceased to exist as a nation. As a result, ALL foreigners (except the Dutch) were forbidden to visit Japan upon pain of death. |
Jesuits reentered Japan disguised as Moslems!!
The Jesuits reentered Japan disguised as Moslems after the fall of the Papal States in 1870. In all recorded history prior to that time, Japan had never invaded another country. They wanted NOTHING whatsoever to do with foreigners because of the poisoning of their minds against Christianity by the Jesuits:
"The writer was told by a Christian Japanese minister in charge of a Protestant mission in Los Angeles in reply to the question as to why the Jesuits, who had been barred for years from Japan, had now been permitted to enter. He.
answered that the Roman Church had gotten into his country under the guise of Mohammedanism, and that after it was well entrenched threw off its disguise, and his country learned to its astonishment that it was to the Roman Church and its monastic orders it had opened its doors" (Suppressed Truth About the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, p.12).
In the Russo-Japanese war of 1904, Japan destroyed most of the Russian Far Eastern fleet. This set Japan on a collision course with Russia over control of Manchuria.
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The Letter President Roosevelt Never Saw
Petition to the President of the United States from 68 atomic scientists!!
July 17, 1945.
Dr. Leo Szilard (1898-1964). | In July 1945, Leo Szilard—the father of the atomic bomb—sent a petition to President Truman signed by 68 atomic sc ientists. This petition asked the President to seriously consider the moral implications of using weapons of mass destruction on the Japanese. The President was out of the country at the time—at Potsdam, Germany, and he never saw the petition until his return on August 7—the day after the bombing of Hiroshima. General Groves made sure that President Truman never saw the scientists' petition—until it was too late!! |
In 1934, Dr. Leo Szilard filed a patent for the world's first chain reaction and the concept of a "critical mass" to create it. In 1939, he was instrumental in getting Dr. Albert Einstein to write a letter to Roosevelt about the dangers of Nazi Germany developing atomic bombs.
In Aug. 1939, Leo Szilard asked Dr. Einstein to write a letter to FDR about the danger of Nazi Germany developing an atomic bomb. | Nobody in the U.S. government listened to Szilard at that time. Even the Italian scientist Enrico Fermi was reluctant to pursue atomic research. Dr. Szilard continued to pursue atomic research at Columbia University in New York City and his frequent nightmares was that Nazi Germany would develop the bomb first. After the Pearl Harbor debacle, everything changed. Szilard and Fermi worked together at the Rockefeller owned University of Chicago to develop an atomic reactor. Szilard invented the concept of the "breeder" reactor to create plutonium for fuel and atomic bombs. |
Dr. Szilard developed the atomic bomb for ONE r
eason only: as a precaution against an A-bomb attack on the U.S. by Nazi Germany.
With the defeat of Nazi Germany in May, 1945, he saw no reason for using the bomb against Japan.
The 68 scientists' letter
We, the undersigned scientists, have been working in the field of a tomic power. Until recently we have had to fear that the United States might be attacked by atomic bombs during this war and that her only defense might lie in a counterattack by the same means. Today, with the defeat of Germany, this danger is averted and we feel impelled to say what follows: The war has to be brought speedily to a successful conclusion and attacks by atomic bombs may very well be an effective method of warfare. We feel, however, that such attacks on Japan could not be justified, at least not until the terms which will be imposed after the war on Japan were made public in detail and Japan were given an opportunity to surrender. If such public announcement gave assurance to the Japanese that they could look forward to a life devoted to peaceful pursuits in their homeland and if Japan still refused to surrender our nation might then, in certain circumstances, find itself forced to resort to the use of atomic bombs. Such a step, however, ought not to be made at any time without seriou sly considering the moral responsibilities which are involved. The development of atomic power will provide the nations with new means of destruction. The atomic bombs at our disposal represent only the first step in this direction, and there is almost no limit to the destructive power which will become available in the course of their future development. Thus a nation which sets the precedent of using these newly liberated forces of nature for purposes of destruction may have to bear the responsibility of opening the door to an era of devastation on an unimaginable scale. If after the war a situation is allowed to develop in the world which permits rival powers to be in uncontrolled possession of these new means of destruction, the cities of the United States as well as the cities of other nations will be in continuous danger of sudden annihilation. All the resources of the United States, moral and material, may have to be mobilized to prevent the advent of such a world situation. Its prevention is at present the solemn responsibility of the United States—singled out by virtue of her lead in the field of atomic power. The added material strength which this lead gives to the United States brings with it the obligation of restraint and if we were to violate this obligation our moral position would be weakened in the eyes of the world and in our own eyes. It would then be more difficult for us to live up to our responsibility of bringing the unloosened forces of destruction under control. In view of the foregoing, we, the undersigned, respectfully petition: first, that you exercise your power as Commander-in-Chief to rule that the United States shall not resort to the use of atomic bombs in this war unless the terms which will be imposed upon Japan have been made public in detail and Japan knowing these terms has refused to surrender; second, that in such an event the question whether or not to use atomic bombs be decided by you in the light of the consideration presented in this petition as well as all the other moral responsibilities which are involved." (Leo Szilard, His Version of the Facts, pp. 211-212). |
General Eisenhower said that the A-bomb was unnecessary!!
General Eisenhower (1890-1969). President of the U.S. from 1953-1960). |
| General Eisenhower —the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe— was in Berlin, Germany, when President Truman was meeting with Stalin at Potsdam. He was NEVER consulted on the A-bomb decision. Leahy, Groves and Byrnes made sure that President Truman was surrounded by "YES" men!! "The incident took place in 1945 when Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. I was not, of course, called upon, officially, for any advice or counsel concerning the matter, because the European theater, of which I was the comm anding general, was not involved, the forces of Hitler having already been defeated. But the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for m y reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent. "During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of "face." The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude, almost angrily refuting the reasons I gave for my quick conclusions."(General Eisenhower, The White House Years, pp. 312-313). |
The military—like the Vatican—is a HIERARCHY and no matter what the personal opinions of the lower ranks it doesn't matter because once an order comes from the top . . . it MUST be obeyed....That is why the Pentagon is the greatest threat to the U.S. Republic. There is no place for a MILITARY HIERARCHY—in this Republic or any Republic . . . except to repel an invasion should it occur.
Official Chronology of Leo Szilard—the father of the atomic bomb
Date | Event |
1898 | Leo Szilard is born in Budapest, Hungary. |
1917 | Drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army. |
1922 | Receives a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Berlin. |
1927 | Files the first of 8 patents with Albert Einstein for an electromagnetic pump, which became the basis of cooling systems in "breeder" reactors. |
March 1934 | Patents the chain reaction concept in London, England. |
August 1934 | Conducts atomic research at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London. Invents the Szilard-Chalmers effect for isotope separation. |
July 1939 | Drafts a letter with Einstein's signature to FDR warning about the danger of Nazi Germany developing atomic bombs. |
Feb. 1942 | Moves to Chicago with other Columbia scientists becoming chief physicist of the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago. |
Dec. 1942 | With Enrico Fermi put into operation the world's first chain-reaction atomic "pile" (reactor) of their design |
Jan. 1943 | Prepares a memo on the first of three designs for a "breeder" reactor (a name he coined) to create plutonium for fuel and A-bombs. |
March 1943 | Becomes a U.S. citizen. |
Aug. 1944 | Proposes a postwar arrangements for national and international control of atomic energy (to curb what he predicted would be a U.S.-Soviet arms race) almost one year before the first A-bomb was tested. |
March 1945 | With an Einstein letter seeks an appointment with President Roosevelt to present scientists' views about wartime and postwar use of A-bombs. FDR dies before their meeting. |
May 1945 | Tries to meet President Truman at the White House but is sent to Spartanburg, South Carolina, to meet private citizen Jimmy Byrnes. |
July 1945 | Organizes a scientists' petition against dropping A-bombs on Japan, but it never reaches President Truman because he is hustled out of the country to Potsdam, Germany. |
1960 | Receives the U.S. atoms for peace award. |
1964 | Dies of a heart attack at his home in Ja Jolla, California. Dr. Szilard should have received 2 Nobel prizes: One for PHYSICS and another for PEACE but his anti-Fascist and pro peace with Russia views cost him both. |
Read this article on ties back into the Jesuits within the Bush Whitehouse
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More Lies and Missing Facts
Target Hiroshima: Deak Parsons and the Creation of the Atomic Bomb, pp. 149-150).
That is like building a rocket ship and testing every part . . . .except the engine. Or designing a gun and never pulling the trigger with a bullet inside to see if it works.... It's pure FICTION as we will PROVE by subsequent events!!
The first bomb was designed to work like the barrel of a gun:
"Little Boy"— the first uranium bomb.
Little Boy: This weapon of mass destruction was a gun-type device. In the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, two pieces of uranium were literally blown together by high explosives in a device similar to an artillery barrel—creating the chain reaction that led to the explosion. The destructive force of "Little Boy" was seven times greater than all the bombs the Allies dropped on Nazi Germany during 1942. This device was developed by Navy Captain William "Deak" Parsons!! | In the gun-assembly method, a sub critical mass of uranium-235 (the projectile) is fired down a cannon barrel into another sub critical mass of U-235 (the target), which is placed in front of the muzzle. Both gun and target are encased in the bomb. When projectile and target contact, they form a critical mass which explodes. We are told that the first atomic bomb dropped on Japan was this UNPROVEN gun-assembly device which had never been tested before Hiroshima. The scientists and the military had such confidence in their new super weapon that they were certain that it would work the first time—without time consuming tests. Only in fairy tales does a highly complex device work perfectly the first time!! This weapon of mass destruction was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945. |
The second bomb was a plutonium "implosive" device
"Fat man" was a plutonium implosive bomb.
The center of the bomb contained the plutonium and it was surrounded by high explosives. The explosives "imploded" inward and triggered the chain reaction in the bomb. |
| The plutonium was WRAPPED in explosives and the explosives IMPLODED inwa rd. The core of the implosion bomb was a plutonium globe of a size just below the critical mass. Made of two hemispheres, it was placed in the center of a larger sphere of explosives, like the pit in a peach. Several deton ators, arranged symmetrically on the outside surface and triggered simultaneously by an electric circuit, were to set off the blast. The pressure was expected to go inward and squash the core into a compressed critical mass. The fission would start a fantastically fast chain reaction, splitting the billions of plutonium nuclei and thus releasing destructive energy never matched before. This weapon of mass destruction was tested on July 16, 1945 at Alamogordo, in the southern desert of New Mexico. This weapon of mass destruction was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. |
"Fat man" was tested on July 16, 1945
Trinity A-bomb test is called the first atomic explosion in the world. | Obviously the scientists and military did not have such confidence in #2 because they decided that maybe they weren't perfect after all and may have made a few mistakes. The test was held in the desert of New Mexico on July 16, 1945. It was a spectacular success. This second more powerful plutonium bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. Although both of these bombs used explosives to trigger the chain reaction; they were radically different in design and operation. |
The world was told Trinity A-bomb test was ammunition explosion!!
The atomic explosion was visible over 200 miles away but the official line was that ammunition exploded. The commanding officer of the Alamogordo air base had been provided weeks before with a news release in which each word had been numbered for security. Groves now ordered the release to be distributed at once. A copy of it was rushed to the AP office in Albuquerque. The wire service story that appeared in a modest half-column on the front page of the Albuquerque Tribune that afternoon carried the lead:
"An ammunition magazine, containing high-explosives and pyrotechnics, exploded early today in a remote area of the Alamogordo air base reservation, producing a brilliant flash and blast which were reported to have been observed as far away as Gallup, 235 miles northwest." (Lamont, Day of Trinity, p.250).
by Peter Vogel
pvogel@together.net
The result of a 20+ year investigation into the July 17 1944 explosion at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine.
This web-based book chronicles the total history of the explosion and connections with Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project.
webmaster@portchicago.org
First atomic explosion took place at Port Chicago on July 17, 1944!!
Port Chicago was the site of an atomic test explosion at 10:17 P.M. on July 17, 1944. | The armed forces of the U.S. were highly segregated in 1944. The only positions open for blacks were in menial jobs. In Port Chicago, they loaded ammunition onto ships 7 days a week in three round-the-clock 8-hour shifts. All the overseers were Simon Legree type officers while the back breaking work was left to the black sailors. |
The scientists' confidence in Little Boy seemed too good to be true....and it was....A nuclear device was tested by the Navy at Port Chicago just north of San Francisco at 10:19 P.M. on July 17:
A plane HAPPENED to be flying over the area at that time:"Seismograph machines at the University of California at Berkeley recorded two jolts with the force of a small earthquake. They occurred about seven seconds apart shortly before 10:19 P.M. A first, smaller explosion (which appeared to some witnesses to occur on the pier itself) was followed by a cataclysmic blast as the E. A. Bryan exploded like one gigantic bomb, sending a column of fire and smoke and debris climbing twelve thousand feet into the night sky, with hundreds of exploding shells making it look like a huge fireworks display.(Allen, The Port Chicago Mutiny, p. 63).
"An Army Air Force plane HAPPENED to be flying over at the time. The copilot described what he saw: 'We were flying the radio range from Oakland headed for Sacramento. We were flying on the right side of the radio range when this explosion occurred. I was flying at the time and looking straight ahead and at the ground when the explosion occurred. It seemed to me that there was a huge ring of fire spread out to all sides, first covering approximately three miles—I would estimate it to be about three miles—and then it seemed to come straight up. We were cruising at nine thousand feet above sea level and there were pieces of metal that were white and orange in color, hot, that went quite a ways above us. They were quite large. I would say they, were as big as a house or a garage. They went up above our altitude. The entire explosion seemed to last about a minute. These pieces gradually disintegrated and fell to the ground in small pieces. The thing that struck me about it was that it was so spontaneous, seemed to happen all at once, didn't seem to be any small explosions except in the air. There were pieces that flew off and exploded on all sides. A good many stars and [it] looked like a fireworks display.'"(Allen, The Port Chicago Mutiny, p. 63).
320 sailors were killed instantly!!
The devastation to the town of Port Chicago was complete. Many were blinded by the brilliant flash of light that accompanied the explosion:
Aerial view showing destroyed pier and oil slick from Quinalt Victory. | "Everyone on the pier and aboard the two ships and the fire barge was killed instantly—320 men, 202 of whom were black enlisted men. (Only 51 bodies sufficiently intact to be identified were ever recovered.) Another 390 military personnel and civilians were injured, including 233 black enlisted men. This single stunning disaster accounted for more than 15 percent of all black naval casualties during the war."(Allen, The Port Chicago Mutiny, p. 64). "The E. A. Bryan was literally blown to bits—very little of its wreckage was ever found that could be identified. The Quinalt Victory was lifted clear out of the water by the blast, turned around, and broken into pieces. The stern of the ship smashed back into the water upside down some five hundred feet from where it had originally been moored. The Coast Guard fire barge was blown two hundred yards upriver and sunk. The locomotive and boxcars disintegrated into hot fragments flying through the air. The 1,200 foot-long wooden pier simply disappeared."(Allen, The Port Chicago Mutiny, p. 64). |
Navy Captain William "Deak" Parsons visited Port Chicago after the explosion!!
Soon after the explosion, "Deak" Parsons left Los Alamos and visited Port Chicago to see how his invention worked:
Capt. William "Deak" Parsons at his desk in Los Alamos where he worked with General Groves and Robert Oppenheimer to perfect the uranium bomb. According to his biographer, he left nothing to chance....testing every component over and over!! (Christman, p. 149). | "Parsons could not avoid the extra responsibilities that went with being the senior naval officer at Y, but many of the tasks that he took on were self-imposed. In July 1944 he did not have to personally investigate the explosion of two ammunition ships at Port Chicago northeast of San Francisco. It was, however, something he felt he had to see for himself. As the chief planner for the military delivery of an explosion of unprecedented size, he recognized the Port Chicago disaster as a chance to examine the effects of the largest explosion ever to occur in the United States. "On 20 July, accompanied by a Los Alamos officer and a scientist, Parsons joined his brother-in-law Capt. Jack Crenshaw (a member of the official inquiry into cause) at Mare island, and they went together to the Port Chicago site. There they observed what had happened when over 1, 500 tons of high explosives and additional tons of shells, smokeless powder, and incendiary clusters exploded in a harbor: the USS E. S. Bryan "fragmented and widely distributed"; the USS Quinalt (waiting to be loaded) torn into large pieces; three hundred and twenty men killed (of which two-thirds were African-American seamen loading ammunition); nothing left of the pier within four hundred feet of the detonation; a wood-frame shop demolished; freight cars buckled. Of the persons killed, all but five were at the center of the explosion. All of the serious damage took place within a one-mile radius."(Christman, Target Hiroshima: Deak Parsons and the Creation of the Atomic Bomb, p. 154). |
Major reorganization at Los Alamos in August 1944!!
Even though the nuclear explosion at Port Arthur was a spectacular success, the scientists at Los Alamos soon discovered that there was not enough uranium-235 available for many more bombs and plutonium would not work in the gun-assembly device:
"Emilio Segré was perplexed. The handsome Italian physicist, a colleague and great friend of Enrico Fermi, was one of the discoverers of plutonium, and he felt he knew the element and its bizarre properties as well as anyone in the world. (Hard as glass under some conditions, plutonium was as soft as plastic under others; even stranger, it actually contracted when heated.) But in midsummer of 1944, as he conducted tests on a tiny sample from the prototype pile at Clinton, Segré found something that seemed to stand his knowledge on its head. His tests showed that the sample contained unmistakable traces of a new plutonium isotope whose atomic weight, at 240, was one unit greater than the Pu-239 with which he and everyone else had been working.
The discovery was chilling. If Pu-240 emitted alpha particles on its own, Pu-239 would be "contaminated" by an excess of unattached neutrons. Because a gun-type bomb—a sort of adaptation of a reliable standard model then in wide use in other bombs—would be triggered by a mechanism that was relatively slow-moving, the plutonium would detonate in advance of the trigger, rendering the bomb a harmless fizzle. Only in an implosion bomb—in which, theoretically at least, the mechanics were so fast that the explosion would take place before the contaminating isotope had time to cause predetonation—could the crippling effects of Pu-240 be overcome. Segré's next round of tests confirmed his worst fear: Pu-240 was indeed an emitter of alpha particles. The chances of using plutonium successfully in a gun-type weapon were now virtually zero."(Lawren, The General and the Bomb, p. 171).
The OLD RELIABLE gun-assembly bomb was kept as a standby as work proceeded on a new design called the implosion bomb:
Robert Oppenheimer and General Groves had a major reorganization at Los Alamos in August 1944!! Parsons was allowed to go with his uranium bomb but work began on a new design: the implosive plutonium bomb. |
| "In the "August reorganization," Oppenheimer created two associate directors: Parsons for ordnance, engineering, assembly, and delivery, and Enrico Fermi for research and theoretical work. In addition to being named associate director, Parsons remained in charge of the Ordnance Division. He retained direct responsibility for the uranium gun, off-site production for the total laboratory, final weapon design, and combat delivery preparations for both bombs. However, parts of the old Ordnance Division, which had outgrown itself, split into two newly created divisions. The Gadget Division for the applied physics' of the implosion weapon went to Robert F. Bacher, former head of the Experimental Physics Division and a forceful manager. The Explosives Division for the explosive components of the bomb, including the explosive lenses, went to Kistiakowsky."(Christman, Target Hiroshima: Deak Parsons and the Creation of the Atomic Bomb, p. 148). Because of the shortage of uranium-235, more copies of Parson's pet uranium bomb could not be made. The gun-assembly device would not work with plutonium so that led to the invention of the implosive bomb. The implosive design was the work of Dr. George B. Kistiakowsky and Seth Neddermeyer and featured lenses to direct the explosion inward to initiate the chain reaction. This device was tested on July 16, 1945 at Alamogordo, New Mexico and was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945. |
Parsons was promoted to Commodore after the successful A-bomb test!!
Within a week of the test of his gun-bomb, Captain Parsons was promoted to the rank of Commodore and assigned to Los Alamos as Deputy Director under J. Robert Oppenheimer. After Hiroshima, Parsons was elevated to the rank of Rear Admiral.Parsons flew with his "baby" all the way to Hiroshima!!
Even though he was a "NAVY" man, Parsons FLEW with his "baby" all the way to Hiroshima. He had given birth to the MONSTER and was not about to let it out of his sight until the mission was accomplished:
Commodore Parsons and Col. Paul Tibbets briefing crews for the Hiroshima mission. | Bomb compartment on the Enola Gay where Parsons watched and prayed over his "baby" on the long flight from Tinian to Hiroshima. | |
B-29 bombers of the 509th Composite Group on Tinian with an assembly of military and Project Alberta technical personnel before the bombing of Hiroshima. | Destruction of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Just like Port Chicago everything within one mile was destroyed . "The area devastated at Hiroshima, was 1.7 square miles, extending out a mile from ground zero. The Japanese authorities estimated the casualties at 71,000 dead and missing and 68,000 injured." (Groves, Now It Can Be Told, p. 319). | |
Commodore Deak Parsons (right) was awarded the Silver Star by the Army Strategic Air Forces while still wearing the shirt stained by sweat and blackened by graphite from his making the final assembly of the bomb during the Enola Gay's flight to Hiroshima. Brig. Gen. John H. Davies presented the award. The Navy later awarded Parsons the Distinguished Service Medal for his leadership in the development of the atomic bomb.
THE PORT OF CHICAGO EXPLOSION WHAT HAPPENED
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