Tibbets could see what was happening—and hated himself for making no move to stem the destruction of his family life. The truth was, as he would later admit, that he did not know what to say to mend matters.
He was also not prepared to give up watching over his fliers to be with his family. When he had first married Lucie, he had warned her that “I was a different kind of cat from the ordinary man,” and that nothing would stand between him and his work.
In the first flush of marriage, she had accepted that. But now, isolated, reduced to listening to long technical conversations her husband had with the officers he occasionally brought home, Lucie Tibbets knew there could be no future for them together.
Even though he was aware of her feelings, Paul Tibbets was “only able to cry inside myself. She never knew, nobody knew, what I was feeling.”
Tibbets and Beser, who had returned with the others from Cuba on February 3, felt they were passing their lives on an endless treadmill between Wendover and Los Alamos.
This morning in early March, they found the sentries at the compound gate more nervous than ever. Both men’s ID cards were checked more thoroughly than usual, even though Tibbets and Beser were now familiar faces.
When they eventually entered the site and were greeted by Ramsey, they found the usually unruffled scientist, in Beser’s opinion, “hot and bothered.”
It was Oppenheimer who told Tibbets the reason for the increased tension. Groves had just ordered that the first plutonium bomb must be ready for testing at Alamogordo by the middle of July, and the first uranium bomb must be available for war purposes by early August.
The deadline placed an additional burden on men and women who had been working under great strain for two years. Tempers flared. There were angry exchanges between the scientists and security men.
The weather did not help. The spring rains were late in coming, and an arid wind blew from the desert over the settlement, withering the grass and drying up the pond in the center of the compound.
Water shortages had always been a problem. Now, water for personal use was rationed. Workers and their families were advised to brush their teeth with Coca-Cola.
Of late on his visits to Los Alamos, Beser had tended to avoid any scientist who raised a doubt about the validity of his work. In Beser’s opinion, such men were misguided. He preferred the views of Dr. Louis Slotin, a young researcher who had worked on the “crit” experiments. “Whether you die by a bullet or a bomb, you are still dead.”
The words exactly matched his own views at a time when thousands of Americans were dying from Japanese bullets on Iwo Jima.
Beser was at Los Alamos to learn more about the fuzing mechanism of the bomb, and how the Japanese might interfere with it electronically, causing a premature explosion.
Tibbets had come to see Oppenheimer to finish up the details for the arrival at Wendover of a new special unit—the First Ordnance Squadron—which would have technical responsibility for the atomic bomb when the 509th was overseas.
After settling on March 6 as the date when the squadron would come to Wendover, Tibbets and Oppenheimer were joined by Ashworth. The navy commander had recently returned to Los Alamos after a thirteen-day visit to the Marianas, where he had delivered Fleet Admiral King’s letter to Admiral Nimitz and explained to the Pacific commander the role of the 509th. Nimitz had made one comment: he wished the bomb were available now to be used on Okinawa, the last major island to be invaded before mainland Japan.
Ashworth told Tibbets that Guam was unsuitable as a base for the 509th. Instead, he agreed the group should use North Field, Tinian; the field had four eighty-five-hundred-foot-long runways.
“I’ll only need one,” responded Tibbets.
24
From the upper floor of his small private hospital, Dr. Kaoru Shima had a good view of Hiroshima. It was one which was beginning to depress him. A slash of wasteland stretched away on each side of the Aioi Bridge, marking one of the fire lanes crossing the city.
Dozens of houses, shops, tearooms, and bars had been demolished in the vicinity of the Shima Surgical Hospital, leaving its medical director and nursing staff with the feeling they worked “on the brink of destruction.”
The morning newscast had reinforced this feeling. For the first time, Japan Radio had given a hint that the fighting on Iwo Jima was going badly.
Iwo’s eight square miles were just seven hundred miles from Tokyo, close enough for the Americans to covet the Japanese island as a fighter-and-bomber base.
For days, the radio and newspapers in Japan had dwelt on the impregnability of the island’s defenses. They had pointed out that the enemy’s seventy-four days of preinvasion bombardment had done little to destroy those defenses; the Imperial Japanese Army was sheltering in caves and deep tunnels, often protected by as much as thirty-five feet of concrete. And when the Americans had landed on Iwo, they had been led into a trap. Lured ashore by light opposition, the invading forces had gained a foothold on the island, only to have that hold nearly crushed by murderous cross fire from the entrenched army. Japan Radio had talked of slaughter on an unparalleled scale. But now, in early March, the latest bulletins were speaking of a “strategic withdrawal.” Dr. Shima, an old hand at assessing the truth of such claims, knew that Iwo Jima was doomed.
Hiroshima’s fire lanes were a constant reminder to him that, as a prelude to invasion, air raids must be expected, and that he would then have to deal with casualties. Only he knew how meager were his resources; in practical terms, he would be able to offer little more than comfort to victims of a major attack. His dispensary was in need of replenishment. He suspected that many of the city’s twenty-two other hospitals and clinics, and also its thirty-two first-aid centers, were in a similar position.
The materials now pouring into Hiroshima contained few medical supplies, and most of those would go to the large Ujina Army Hospital, the Red Cross Hospital, and the Mitsubishi Shipyard Hospital. Dr. Shima’s private clinic was low down on the army’s list of priorities.
The clinic survived solely because of the driving force of its owner. He was also frequently called upon to perform operations in country hospitals. The sight of the doctor pedaling his bicycle, with his bag of instruments strapped to his back, was a familiar one in the area.
The construction of the fire lanes often added time to his journeys, as demolished buildings blocked streets and he was forced to make long detours. But Dr. Shima never complained. To those who did, he had an unfailing answer. “Be glad you are alive.”
25
Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Roosevelt’s chief of staff, was not impressed with what he had heard of the Manhattan Project. The idea of a single bomb destroying a large city—and ending the war—was farfetched to him. Speaking as “an expert on explosives,” he planned to inform the president that the project was a dud, that the bomb would never explode.
Roosevelt had no lack of people prepared to offer him the benefit of their advice. Leo Szilard was one of those asking for an appointment. Szilard now believed it was no longer the Germans who threatened the world; “our worry [is] about what the Government of the United States might do to other countries.”
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson advised Roosevelt not to see the Hungarian scientist. Others were not so easy to avoid. Over a year earlier, Harry S. Truman, then a senator from Missouri, had begun asking awkward questions. Stimson had silenced him at that time, but now he had to be more tactful. Any day, Truman could be president. Stimson knew that the ailing Roosevelt was hanging on to life by sheer willpower.