Batter my heart, three person’d God.
John Donne
At 5:29 AM Mountain War Time, eighty years ago, the first atomic bomb, nicknamed The Gadget, exploded with the force of 20 kilotons of TNT. The test was called Trinity. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, gave the test its name. He couldn’t recall why he chose the name, but suspected that his interest in some of the religious poetry of John Donne played a role, pointing to the verse at the beginning of this post as a possible source.
A brilliant physicist, Oppenheimer was inclined to be melancholy and had an eclectic interest in religious mysticism, rather at odds with his secular Jewish upbringing and the leftist academic milieu in which he led his life.
His visible reaction to the success of the test was rather prosaic: “It worked.”
Twenty years later he said this was going through his mind:
I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.
Usually taken as a confession of regret, the quotation actually has a different meaning I think. After the quoted section of the Bhagavad-Gita, Vishnu convinces Prince Arjuna to join in the war. That fits in with Oppenheimer’s subsequent action in supporting the use of the atomic bombs on Japan. After the War he had bitter regret in the role that he played in developing the bomb that led to so many deaths. However, in 1965 the old before his time and ill Oppenheimer was honestly relating his mental state of twenty years before, when he had led the development of a terrible weapon that brought a terrible war to an end.
As West and East
In all flatt Maps—and I am one—are one,
So death doth touch the Resurrection.
John Donne
Jewish men perhaps did more than any other people to give us access to nuclear energy. Besides Oppenheimer, there’s Edward Teller, Richard Feyman, Alvin Weinberg, Admiral Hyman G. Rickover (my hero), etc. BTW, Enrico Fermi was Italian, but I think his wife was Jewish, so again, thanks go to the Jews. And yes, I think it is a GOOD thing that the United States developed both nuclear weapons to defeat Japan (and to maintain a credible deterrant during the Cold War and now with China rising) and nuclear power (to eventually replace polluting fossil fuels – we are really slow on the draw here).
PS, As a very junior petty officer when I first got to my submarine, I was assigned berthing in the torpedo room. I slept next to a nuclear weapon on a skid a few feet away. I always felt perfectly safe. 😉
Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, pray for us.
BTW, lest anyone think that mankind will destroy the Earth with nuclear weapons or climate change or whatever, be advised what 2nd Peter 2:7 & 10 state:
“But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist have been stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men……But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up.”
God will destroy the present heavens and the Earth. Therefore, remember the promise of Revelation 21:1:
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.”
Aint a’gonna happen by nuclear weapons or climate change. Man is NOT that powerful.
Opps, I meant 2nd Peter 3:7 & 10. Wrong chapter. My bad.
My family, maternal and fraternal, were German-Americans who came over before the war. There was never any doubt in their minds who should have got the bomb first. There were no trophies for second place.
Nuclear power is part of the physics of the universe we live in. It lights the Sun and the stars. We can’t unlearn this reality. I saw a documentary that, IIRC, said that some of the participants in WWII made statements during and after the war that were contradictory. Some to burnish their post-war reputations. Is this accurate?
LQC:
Jewish Lize Meitner discovered nuclear fission. Her nephew (do not remember his name) worked on the Manhattan Project. Polish Marie Sklodowski discovered Uranium and Polonium.
The atomic bomb ended WWII. My advice: If you do not want war, do not start a war.
There is always somebody bigger, smarter and stronger, especially with God on their side.
The Bomb was intended for Berlin; truly deserving. Not finished in time, the Bomb was intended for Tokyo, truly deserving.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the closest we could come.
BTW: For two weeks before the Bomb, leaflets were dropped for the inhabitants to evacuate.
The fallacy of the “secular” mentality is often revealed in a fascination and gullibility regarding false religions and pagan “mysticism.”
The emptiness of the soul that does not follow Christ wants to fill itself with something else.
It could be ancient Hindu gods and goddesses or some made up, New Age religion. But it is always a poor substitute.
Nuking Tokyo would have decapitated the Japanese government. This would have complicated the post-surrender occupation. Most Americans wanted Hirohito to be tried as a war criminal and executed. He proved to be very useful during the transition to democratic rule during the post war occupation.
GregB:
“very useful” does not make up for the Bataan Death March. Hirohito refused to surrender. The only principle he insisted upon in the surrender, which Hirohito got, was that Hirohito would retain his divine, god status. This is why Hirohito may have been helpful in reconstruction under the Marshal Plan. There were no men left in Germany or Japan to fight the wars they started.
Hirohito ordered 10 and 12 year old children to fight the Americans with sticks and stones.
Hirohito was and is a war criminal.
Mary De Voe:
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From what I’ve heard the Japanese military was diffuse and in areas independent. That it was necessary to have a centralized source of authority to order the surrender to prevent an extended period of continuing conflict. An enemy that refuses to admit defeat can continue fighting by means of guerilla and insurgency methods like those in Afghanistan and Iraq. There was an attempted mutiny of the military to prevent the radio transmission of a recording of Hirohito’s surrender speech. Members of the military committed suicide. Hirohito had to send personal envoys to pretty much order the military to surrender and stand down. From what I’ve heard there were people in the Japanese military that acted surly during the beginning of the occupation.
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I agree that much of what Hirohito did during the war was reprehensible. That the Japanese leadership did not care about the suffering of their own people. That the Japanese people were treated like hostages by the leadership, willing to sacrifice them if necessary. A little over half of the Okinawan military were Okinawan conscripts, making it difficult to distinguish civilians from the military in figuring out casualty numbers. This along with the Japanese military’s brutality towards enemy populations. The Japanese military had a very different mindset than the Allies did when it came to fighting the war.
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If people want to see how conventional land invasions go they should study the Soviet battle for Berlin. Just about every horror story predicted for the Japanese land invasion took place in that siege. Hitler was just as fanatical as the Japanese leadership. He ordered a fight to the death. Old men and Hitler Youth made up part of the Volkssturm, a militia. The Germans had a recoilless weapon called the Panzerfaust used as an anti-tank weapon. There are pictures of civilians being trained it its use. There were roving bands of extremists who could execute those Germans suspected of desertion, usually public hanging. When it was all said and done the casualty count was up there with Hiroshima and Nagasaki.