Trinity

A few months ago, a movie premiered. You may have heard of it… Oppenheimer. I was very interested in seeing this movie because I’ve looked at a lot of information about the Trinity tests and the after effects of the bombs. I say I’ve “looked at” information – it hasn’t gone to the level of research, more being curious and seeing where my searches lead me.

One of the first reasons for my curiosity was wondering if it was possible to visit Los Alamos and the site of the testing. It might sound a little offbeat, but the idea grew from visiting another atomic site – the EBR-1 (Experimental Breeder Reactor-1) near Arco, Idaho – “the first city in the world to be lit by atomic power.” I found out there was a tour at the site many years ago from an old reference book that listed factory and industrial tours across the United States. It was an interesting trip, to say the least. I loved the look of the town, the landscape, visiting the site, and then visiting otherworldly Craters of the Moon National Monument. A completely different world than what we’re used to in New Jersey.

Then it was a short mind hop to finding out about more atomic-related history and sites. I looked at a lot of websites over the years and read Hiroshima by John Hersey. Writing this post, I also think back on growing up at the end of the Cold War. Nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear war were always in the background, even if I never felt that it would really happen. And who can forget the scenes in Terminator 2 showing a nuclear blast? Sprinkled through all this was visiting the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center, where the Enola Gay airplane is housed. This was the exact plane that dropped the Hiroshima bomb; you can read more about the plane’s history on the museum’s website.

Back to Los Alamos and the Trinity site. It is possible to visit! Los Alamos is part of the Manhattan Project National Historic Park; Trinity is in White Sands Missile Range. As they say in their Trinity Site Open House information – “Due to the release of the movie, Oppenheimer in July, we are expecting a larger than normal crowd at the 21 October Open House.” I bet there will be! In 2014, the television series Manhattan was shown (available on DVD at the library). Not entirely true to life, but reawakened my desire to learn more about the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb. 

I’ve toyed with reading American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin since it came out in 2005. It’s a huge book – over 700 pages. Book length doesn’t usually scare me away, but biographical stories are not what I normally read. After seeing the movie, I’ve changed my mind. I want the detail Bird and Sherwin have put into their work, the movie wasn’t enough. If you’d like to know more, but 700+ pages aren’t in your future (even as an audiobook), try these other titles – all available at the Mercer County Library System:

The Bomb: The Weapon That Changed the World by Alcante (graphic novel)

109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos by Jennet Conant

24 Hours After Hiroshima (DVD)

The Manhattan Project: The Birth of the Atomic Bomb in the Words of Its Creators, Eyewitnesses, and Historians by Cynthia C. Kelly

Hiroshima, Nagasaki: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and their Aftermath by Paul Ham

Enola Gay (DVD)

- by Andrea, Hopewell Branch