Opinion in England has recently changed from requirement b) to requirement a). This is a major change in policy… and details are being sought from England on the current opinion of the relative values of A and B damage caused in German towns by H.E. (high explosive) blast.
Penney then sets out the reason for the shift in policy: the V1 attacks on London, which of course were responsible for the devastating impact on his own life. Penney, who refers to the onslaught as “robot attacks”, writes:-
(these) have forced a large scale systematic repairing schedule, which has proved that B damage is more readily repairable than previously thought. This is confirmed by cover photographs of Hamburg and other cities showing that really large areas of B damage have been restored with incredible rapidity.
Total destruction, or A damage is Penney’s preferred option, and he describes in grisly detail the effects of blasts on various structures ranging from three storey blocks of flats in Hamburg, to the wooden (but earthquake-resistant) structures of Yokohama. Calculations are made about how many pounds per square inch of blast pressure it would take to cause family homes to implode, tear concrete off the walls, collapse shelters (where people might be sheltering) and cause wooden structures to self-combust over varying distances. But where Penney really gets into his stride is in his calculations concerning the “fire producing” qualities of the bomb:-
The explosion of a gadget either in Germany or Japan, causing large areas of A damage will almost certainly result in fires. The large number of casualties associated with A damage may well lead to such confusion that the critical incubation period of the fires is passed unobserved. Thereafter the fire guards are useless, and only the Fire Force counts.
In other words the more people you kill, the less people left to put out the fires. This, according to Penney, would leave only a handful of professionals (Fire Force) to deal with the resulting firestorm. But Penney had a plan to deal with them as welclass="underline" lure the professional firefighters into the radioactive contaminated area and then firebomb them in a follow up attack to finish them off. “This is attractive and realistic”, he writes. One can imagine the chill descending over the assembled scientists as Penney (probably with a smile) made his presentation.
When Neils Bohr later produced a sketch of what looked like a heavy water reactor and said it had been designed by the German Physicist Werner Heisenberg proving the Nazis were on to the possibility of nuclear fission, there was a ripple of panic, and thenceforth activity increased immeasurably. And as their work gradually bore fruit security became tighter than ever. Groves, who had his spies everywhere, was suspicious of everyone. Passes were checked daily and double banks of barbed wire surrounded the more sensitive areas.
Penney had become Groves’ main intelligence source among the British group. Two scientists on the British team were later to complain about Penney’s zeal in hunting down potential spies. Polish physicist Joseph Rotblat, who quit the Manhattan Project after it became clear the Nazis would be defeated, spoke of his bitterness about a large trunk containing his precious possessions which disappeared on his way home: he was convinced it had been taken by the Los Alamos security people.
The incident followed amazing rumours about Rotblat, who had aroused suspicions when he decided to take flying lessons on his days off. He had apparently talked to Penney and others about enlisting in the RAF and joining Polish Spitfire squadrons that had helped win the Battle of Britain. For some reason a bizarre idea went round that he was planning to parachute into Russia to help the communist cause. (Hitler’s deputy Rudolph Hess’s parachute drop into Scotland in the crazy hope securing a peace deal was big news at the time.) Rotblat was closely questioned before he was allowed to return to the UK.
Michael Moore, assistant to Sir James Chadwick, the leader of the British mission, complained he was also given a security grilling. Moore, who was born in Cork, said officials became suspicious after he had spoken to Penney and others, in nostalgic terms about his Irish roots. Later he was interviewed by security officials and shown documentary evidence, obtained from British police, that one of his distant relatives had been a member of the IRA. What upset Moore most was that members of his family back in Liverpool had been visited by police detectives and given a rough time as they quizzed them about their political affiliations.
The experience still rankled 40 years later when Moore discussed it for the first time during an interview at his home in St. Helens, a town 10 miles from Liverpool. “I always blamed Penney,” he said ruefully. “I should never have confided in him. The experience left a bad taste in my mouth.”
Whether Penney was responsible is debateable. But what is certain is that around this time he was moved up several tiers in the Los Alamos hierarchy to consultant to the Director of the atomic test programme, Kenneth Bainbridge. He was put in charge of measuring the blast waves from the test explosion, which was given the codename Trinity.
Penney was also afforded entry into the Manhattan Project’s inner circle, the seven-man Target Committee set up to decide which Japanese cities to bomb after the successful completion of Trinity. He was given the task of deciding the height of the blast so as to afford maximum damage to Hiroshima, which was the primary target. Nagasaki would be drawn from a short-list of several other cities at a later date.
The youthful Englishman, still only 34, was also given the considerable accolade of being the only British scientist chosen to observe the combat use of the weapon. To prepare him for the role, arrangements were made for Penney to be given a grandstand view of the Trinity test explosion from one of the observer aircraft.
TRINITY
Monday July 16, 1945 was the day earmarked for the historic testing of the world’s first atomic bomb. The huge spherical ‘gadget’ was hoisted to the top of a 100-foot tower in a remote corner of the Alomogordo air base, 230 miles from Los Alamos. The last minute checks were satisfactory; everything was ready for the show. But on Sunday night the skies darkened and thunder rolled in the surrounding mountains. Then it started to rain. There was no sleep that night for anyone.
By 2am the weather began to improve, but it was decided to postpone the shot from the planned 4am to 5.30. After receiving weather reports, the decision was made. Unfortunately for Penney the foul weather had moved to Albuquerque air base where he was waiting in full flying gear to take off in one of the observer planes.
As news flashed through that the shot would go ahead at 5.30am, a simultaneous decision was made to ground the bombers. It was a huge disappointment, especially for Penney who had been intimately involved in the last-minute preparations. But it was a wise move as there was a considerable risk of the observer aircraft becoming lost in the heavy cloud cover and straying over ground zero. A rueful Penney later admitted to Chadwick, “We wouldn’t have had a chance.”
At exactly 5.29 and 45 seconds the brightest light in the universe bathed the area in an unearthly brilliance. The steel tower that held the bomb didn’t just vaporise – it vanished. In the command bunkers, the observers lay face down on the ground, their feet facing toward ground zero. As soon as the light went they stood and turned toward the explosion. Even at two miles distant, some were knocked off their feet by the shock wave. Witnesses to nuclear explosions, the ‘destruction of the building blocks of the universe’, have been moved to express it in almost religious terms. Oppenheimer forever now to be known as the ‘Father of the Atom Bomb’ remarked: “I am become death, the destroyer of world”, a passage from the sacred Hindu text the Bhagavad Gita.