Given the fact that the occupation of the passengers killed was to assemble the most destructive weapon in the world, it was curious that the investigation did not warrant more attention. The young men killed were part of an elite engineering squad who were trained to assemble atomic bombs. The deaths of the 15 passengers aboard Bus 147, on December 15th, 1945, effectively set the manufacturing capacity of future atomic bombs to zero, at least for the next six months.
It can only be speculated, but it is evident from some of the telegraph messages sent and received, that a few the people in charge tried to raise a red flag. The people in control of the program were not seemingly alarmed. Perhaps it was because World War Two had just ended and there was talk of never using the atomic bomb again. Besides, against whom would they use it?
Now, if they knew what was to occur in less than 5 months’ time, they might have acted with more haste and alarm, to investigate the incident further. Possibly they may have found the remnants of the first shots of World War Three, somewhere along the road where the bullets ricocheted, after shredding the front tires of Bus 147. And thus ended the lives of 15 young American atomic engineers and an old bus driver, along an unknown road between Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Phoenix, Arizona.
Excerpted from a police report filed by the Santa Fe, New Mexico, Police Department:
December 16, 1945
Santa Fe, NM
23:45 hours
Corner of 5th and Yardley
Officer Sergio Patina, Badge# 582
A white male, 25 years of age, was the victim of an automobile hit-and-run accident. The victim was killed instantly by a dark Ford, traveling at a high rate of speed moving east on 5th Street.
The victim was identified as Army Sgt. Jerome Wilcox of Dixon, Illinois. No other information was available.
The body was claimed and picked up at 23:26 hours by a special squad led by Major John Jones, U.S. Army. No ID # given. The Major was bearing a court order from a U.S. Federal Magistrate to retrieve the body and a special letter from the Office of the President of the United States.
No further investigation authorized, upon confirmation of the authenticity of the documents.
End of report per Chief of Police, Winston Jackson, Santa Fe Police Department.
Excerpted from a police report from the Delavan, Wisconsin, Police Department:
December 17, 1945
Delavan, WI
02:32
Snuffie’s Bar
589 12th Avenue
Officer Norm Smyth, Badge# 102
A 23 year-old white male was stabbed to death, in an apparent mugging outside Snuffie’s
Bar. The victim was found in a pool of his own blood by other patrons leaving the bar.
The victim was identified as U.S. Army Lieutenant Marvin Boyson, of Delavan, stationed in New Mexico, and home on leave.
The body was claimed by U.S. Army Major John Jones, bearing special documents from the Federal Government and a writ from a Federal Judge, and thus was not released to family pending Army investigation.
No further investigation is authorized.
End of report per Chief of Police Grady Monahan.
A fairly non-descript looking man picks up a telegram at the Western Union office which reads thus:
***Urgent-Your Eyes Only***
Gadget assembly teams not able to function… STOP
Locate others and seek shelter… STOP
Highest priority… STOP
Signed Minuit… STOP
Having read the telegram, he calmly burns it with his cigarette lighter and walks away.
Outside Washington, D.C.
January 2, 1946
“Sergeant, get me General Hightower! NOW!”
“Holy shit Jim. I have more than a dozen reports on my desk and they all involve the deaths of seventeen of the twenty-two assembly team personnel and the crippling of another four. Someone has been targeting our assembly teams for the gadget when they went home on leave over the holidays.”…
…
“We have a mole and they have fingered our assembly teams. All the other gadget personnel are locked away in Los Alamos but these guys were allowed to go home. Whoever they are, they just crippled our program, and I’m sure the Reds know it. It could be six months before we find the talent we need. We’re really screwed…”
…
“Yeah you said it. I gotta call the Admiral. He can get the word to the President. Yeah you take care too, Jim.”…
Damn! We really are screwed without those boys. Took a long time to train them and now we have to start over again…
Chapter Two:
Turning of Wheels
Moscow, U.S.S.R.
January 23, 1946
***самое сокровенное — для вас в покое, чтобы увидеть***
(***Most Secret — For You Alone To See***)
This transmission is to be read to Headquarters staff at 1500 hours.
Our former allies, the so-called “Western Democracies,” have demobilized entire armies, and have sent many of their armed forces home. The U.S. and England have a fraction of their former forces stationed on the European mainland. They mistakenly believe that their so called “Atomic Bomb” has altered our plans.
Our glorious leader, Tovarishch Stalin has given us of his vision of a worldwide workers’ paradise led by his guiding hand.
He does not fear the atomic bomb. He has seen the devastation it has brought to untold numbers of innocent victims; he does not fear its wrath.
Although he has no doubt that our armed forces can storm through the blasted hulk of the former Germany and France, he does not want to use our armies, unless it is absolutely necessary. Recent events have forced his hand, and the very existence of Soviet society is imperiled.
Our former allies have made a fateful blunder and the world shudders at the prospect, and consequences, of another World War. They have rejected our rightful demands, regarding Manchuria, Turkey and the liberation of Eastern Europe. In a stupendous miscalculation, the U.S. has based a squadron of B-29 Superfortresses at Frankfurt, in Western Germany in an attempt to intimidate us. The B-29 is not a defensive weapon. Furthermore a plan authored by the British Government has fallen into our hands entitled “Operation Unthinkable”.[2] It details a sneak attack on the Motherland. It is a plan so diabolical that it makes the Great Patriotic war and the craven attack by the Hitlerites pale by comparison. A sneak attack by our former allies against Hitler. The very allies we saved from certain destruction with the lives of our sons and daughters.
2
Operation Unthinkable was the British authored plan to attack the USSR immediately after WWII. It was a code-name of two related plans of a conflict between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. Both were ordered by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1945 and developed by the British Armed Forces’ Joint Planning Staff at the end of World War II in Europe.
The first of the two assumed a surprise attack on the Soviet forces stationed in Germany in order to “impose the will of the Western Allies” on the Soviets and force Joseph Stalin to honor the agreements in regards to the future of Central Europe.