The year is 1942, and 21-year-old Harold Agnew has gotten a job in a research team at the University of Chicago.
Agnew is proud that he has been involved in developing a six-kilo box that will change world history in a few years.
The other researchers are at least as proud. In turn, they take pictures of themselves with the box in hand.
The box contains the plutonium core of the world’s first fission reactor that can demonstrate a self-propelled chain reaction, Chicago Pile-1.
In good Norwegian: An atomic bomb.
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Top secret project
It is World War II, and for three years the United States has been working to develop a nuclear bomb together with Britain and Canada.
Harold travels from his wife Beverly to the island of Tinian in the western Pacific to test it.
The top secret project has been named the Manhattan Project.
On July 16, 1945, Harold Agnew and scientists carry out the world’s first nuclear test in the Pacific Ocean.
The United States wants to end the war against Japan, and they have three choices:
- Drop the atomic bomb and force Japan to surrender unconditionally.
- Accept Japan’s offer to surrender and let them continue to fight with the Soviet Union, but then risk the Soviet Union winning and gaining greater influence in the Far East.
- A forced attack on the Japanese mainland.
LITTLE BOY: The atomic bomb of the Little Boy type, which was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Photo: Reuters
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Decides after notification
In July 1945, Japanese Foreign Minister Togo Moto sent a message to the United States:
Japan will not give up, and they will fight to the end.
That is the confirmation the United States needs – now they are deciding that the war will end with atomic bombs.
The military selects several strategic targets for the bombs: Hiroshima, Kyoto, Yokohama, Niigata and Kokura.
Nagasaki, a major port and industrial city that plays a major role in the Japanese war effort, is selected as a secondary target.
On August 6, 1945, the American bomber Enola Gay dropped the four-tonne uranium bomb “Little Boy” over Hiroshima.
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Follows with film camera
Next to the bomber, Harold Agnew and his team fly to observe it all.
Agnew brings a 16-millimeter film camera to film the giant explosion.
The bomb detonates 580 meters above the city and creates a mushroom-shaped fireball that in just one second has a diameter of 280 meters.
The fireball creates a giant pressure wave that causes 48,000 buildings to collapse immediately.
118,000 people are turned to ashes.
IN WAR: Lieutenant Paul W. Tibbets (center) flanked by the crew in front of the bomber Enola Gay, who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. Photo: REX
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The plane must turn
Three days later, on August 9, it’s Kokura’s turn, but the bomber has to turn around because the city is covered in clouds and smoke.
The bomber has too little petrol to fly all the way to Niigata, and the journey therefore goes to Nagasaki.
At 11.02, the 4.5 kilogram atomic bomb “Fat Man” is dropped at the industrial areas outside the city.
EXPLOSION: This image from August 9, 1945 shows the forces of the atomic bomb over Nagasaki. Photo: AP
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Evened with the soil
80 percent of the buildings within two kilometers of the bomb are leveled.
By the end of 1945, nearly 75,000 people who experienced the attack have died from either direct fatal radiation, burns and injuries from falling and flying objects.
Six days later, Japan has no choice but to surrender.
EQUAL TO EARTH: The industrial area outside Nagasaki depicted one year after the bomb was dropped. Photo: AP
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Continues with weapons
Harold Agnew sets course for the military in Los Alamos, where he begins working in the artillery and begins to develop new weapons, such as a thermonuclear warhead.
FAT MAN: An image of a Fat Man bomb similar to the one used in Nagasaki in 1945. Photo: AP
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– They deserved it
In 1979, Harold Agnew leaves Los Alamos and becomes head of the San Diego company General Atomics.
There he will be responsible for the development of new nuclear reactors.
In 1984, he told the Los Angeles Times that he had never regretted any of the things he had done.
– My feelings towards Hiroshima and the Japanese were that their father deserved it. The whole thing has been turned into that we were the “bad guys”, he says, and continues:
– What we did was save many lives in the long run, and I am proud to have been a part of this.
VISITING: Harold Agnew visits The Los Alamos Laboratory in 2006. Photo: The Los Alamos Laboratory
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He says that even if he does not regret it, he would like world leaders to stand up in their panties and feel on their bodies how powerful an atomic bomb really is.
– This is how he can feel the heat and understand what he is raving about, he says to the newspaper.
He says that everyone who took part in the bombing of Japan will soon die.
– We are entering a new era where there are few of us left, we who have seen a megatonn bomb go off. Once you have seen one, the effect becomes clearer.
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“My legacy”
In an interview with BBC in 2005, Agnew says he considers nuclear weapons development his legacy.
– About three quarters of the US nuclear arsenal was designed under my leadership in Los Alamos. That is my legacy, he says.
In 2011, Harold Agnew’s wife Beverly dies.
He also died two years later, after developing chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
He dies while watching football at home in Solana Beach, California, leaving behind children Nancy and son John.
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