Nuclear Dawn; The Atomic Bomb from the Manhattan Project to the Cold War

New York: Osprey Publishing, 2009. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Peter Bull (line drawings and cartography). Format is approximately 7.75 inches by 9.75 inches. 216 pages. Illustrated endpapers. Illustrations (some in color). Includes Preface and Acknowledgments, Chronology, Notes and Sources, Bibliography, and Index. Chapters include The Pre-Atomic Age; Developing the Bomb, 1939-1945; Little Boy and Fat Man; Delivering the Bomb; Hiroshima; Nagasaki; Reaction and Response; Operation Crossroads: The Bikini Tests; Nuclear Proliferation and Deterrence; and Legacies of the Bomb. James Preston Delgado, Ph.D. (born January 11, 1958) is a maritime archaeologist, historian, maritime preservation expert, author, television host, and explorer. Delgado is a maritime archaeologist who has spent over four decades in underwater exploration. A veteran of over 100 shipwreck investigations around the world, his work has included the wrecks of RMS Titanic, USS Independence (CVL-22), USS Conestoga (AT-54),, USS Monitor, USS Arizona (BB-39), USS Nevada (BB-36), Sub Marine Explorer, the buried Gold Rush ships of San Francisco, the atomic bomb test fleet at Bikini Atoll, the slave ship Clotilda, and Khubilai Khan's lost fleet. Dr. Delgado's long career has included heading a major maritime museum, leading both the National Park Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s maritime heritage programs. He is the author of over 200 academic articles, and more than 33 books. Named a Fellow of the Explorers Club in 1997, Delgado is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and an Officer in Spain's Order of Civil Merit. According to James Delgado, at the start of the Manhattan project in 1942, the element plutonium only existed in microscopic quantities. By June 16, 1945, the date of the world's first nuclear bomb test, America had a fully-operational plutonium industry capable of producing hundreds of pounds of the fissionable material. In just three short years, nuclear weapon technology had progressed from infancy to the world stage. Delgado, the co-host of the National Geographic Television series "The Sea Hunters," tells the breathtaking story of the original Manhattan Project and its aftermath. While most previous authors have focused on either the scientific or the social history of the events, Delgado's is the first to spotlight the military and political phases of the atom bomb. In crisp prose, he covers the background of the bomb in the labs in Europe, Britain, and America, but the story picks up speed after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war by America. While most people recognize Robert Oppenheimer as the father of the bomb, readers of Nuclear Dawn will be surprised to learn that gave birth more in the sense that Henry Ford gave birth to the auto industry. In Delgado's narrative, Oppenheimer's role as master organizer and astute business manager is emphasized. What's more, few before Delgado have understood how deeply involved the US Army was in the project. From the very beginning, the program was run by army officers, financed by secret wartime military funds--to the tune of billions of dollars, staffed by army engineers and scientists, and made possible by army bureaucracy. Delgado also shows that without the army's ordnance expertise at Los Alamos, Oppenheimer's team could not have turned nuclear technology into a workable bomb. Several other unique aspects of Nuclear Dawn turn on the military's role in the project. For example, Delgado tells the full story of the army air force's 509th fighter battalion, which was headed by an iconoclastic colonel named Paul Tibbets. Tibbets' battalion consisted of over 1,200 pilots and crew dedicated to a singular task: delivering an atomic bomb to Japan. Delgado tells how as part of their training, the Utah-based crews would fly practice sorties to Cuba and back, over and over again. Another little-known aspect of the Manhattan Project drawn out be Delgado is the post-war bickering that quickly arose between the army and navy over who would control the bomb. James Delgado's new book fills a very important gap in our understanding of the enormous changes that the United States military underwent during WWII. This fully illustrated book encompasses the development of the bomb from early attempts during the war to the aftermath of the Bikini tests, placing its technological development within the political and military contest of World War II and the post-war years. As well as the technological development, historian James Delgado also examines how the U.S. Army Air Force had to develop the capacity to deliver the weapons, and examines the sites where development and testing took place, in order to give a comprehensive history of the dawning of the nuclear age. The obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 brought the world to a stand still. This unimaginable shock confirmed to the world that the race to develop a working atomic weapon during World War II had been won by the American-led international effort. Horrific and controversial even today, these first uses of the atomic bomb had intense ramifications not only on the continued development of the bomb, but also on politics and popular culture. As well as the technological development, historian James Delgado also examines how the US Army Air Force had to develop the capacity to deliver the weapons, and examines the sites where development and testing took place, in order to give a comprehensive history of the dawning of the nuclear age.