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Chicago was used also as a decontamination port for ships exposed to nuclear blasts in the Marshall Islands. Los Alamos Laboratories have an inventory of all munitions loaded onto the Bryan before the disaster. For 18th July 1944, there are two empty boxcars, DLW44755 and GN46324, listed with an asterisk. The asterisk refers to a note at the bottom of the page: "Papers showing that these cars were loaded we destroyed, so cars do not show on attach[ed] list." These may have been the cars which carried two parts of the uranium-235 gun. Eyewitnesses reported "an enormous blinding incandescent”. The Navy reported "the first flash was brilliant white", such as is now known to be characteristic of nuclear explosions which achieve several tens of millions of degrees Centigrade in millisec- onds. Conventional explosives reach a maximum of 5,000°C and do not give off a white flash except when mixed with magnesium. There was no magnesium on the list of explosives loaded onto the Bryan. The white flash occurs with atomic bombs of five kilotons and greater. The Port Chicago disaster gave rise to a Wilson condensation cloud like those at Bikini—now known to be characteristic of atomic bombs detonated in vapour-laden atmospheres. The seismic records show a very rapid detonation not character- istic of conventional explosions but the signature of atomic explo- sions. There was a typical nuclear fire-ball. CONCLUSION After examination of the historical evidence, the testimonials of survivors and eyewitnesses, the subsequent investigations as well as the film record, it is hard not to reach the conclusion that the blast at Port Chicago was in fact an atomic explosion—which, if so, would make it the world’s first atomic detonation. What really needs to be investigated further is whether or not this device was deliberately detonated by the military, using low- ranking (black) personnel as guinea pigs to test its effects. THE FILM What really needs to be investigated further is whether or not The Navy has a film record of the disaster at its Concord Naval this device was deliberately detonated by the military, using low- Weapons Station. After being challenged, the Navy claimed this _ ranking (black) personnel as guinea pigs to test its effects. was a Hollywood simulation of a miniature explosion. The film shows a typical nuclear explosion, which would have been hard to PRIMARY SOURCES OF HISTORY simulate. According the the Navy, the film was created to support There are two primary sources, The Los Alamos Project, their argument to the US Congress sometime in the 1960s that the © Volumes I and II (distribution, 1961), which contains the official remains of the the town of Port Chicago be purchased by the Navy _ history of the Manhattan Project, code-name for the atomic bomb and incorporated into the Concord Naval Weapons Station as a program in World War II, and a Los Alamos declassified docu- buffer zone in the event of another large explosion. ment entitled “History of the 10,000-ton Gadget", which dates Significantly, the Navy did not from about September 1944. claim the film was a re-creation until Manhattan District History—Project after it was suggested that the film Y: The Los Alamos Project, Volumes | could be the inal of a nuclear det- The Navy has a film record of and II, LAMS-2532, Los Alamos, onation. However, Dan Tikalsky, the disaster at its Concord Paragraph 11:20, refers to work accom- public affairs chief at Concord, told plished at Los Alamos following 1st Peter Vogel, writing for The Black Naval Weapons Station. After August 1944 in describing the process Scholar magazine, that the film was being challenged, the Navy of an atomic explosion. It is almost a nitrate-base film, which would identical with the Los Alamos docu- require the film to have been pro- claimed this was.a Hollywood ment, "History of the 10,000-ton duced prior to 1950 when nitrate- simulation of a miniature Gadget", procured by Peter Vogel, a base film was replaced with non- Santa Fe historian. Both appear to explosive cellulose-base film. explosion. describe an actual nuclear explosion. Peter Vogel wrote in the Spring Joseph O. Hirschfelder (later of 1982 edition of The Black Scholar: University of Wisconsin at Madison) "Based on viewing an edited video was director of the project at Los copy of that film which was made available to me, I have conclud- Alamos. Paragraph 11:20 of the Manhattan District History (sup- ed that the film records, in every detail, the progression of the _ posedly prepared in November 1944) reads: actual explosion of July 17, 1944 at Port Chicago. For example, "Much more extensive investigation of the behavior and effects early frames of the film suggest a record of the expansion of the of a nuclear explosion were made during this period than had Wilson condensation cloud during which the formation of the ball _ been possible before, tracing the history of the process from the of fire is obscured. Furthermore, the movements exhibited by sev- _ initial expansion of the active material and tamper [Tuballoy, an eral large, independent fragments of the explosion over time com- __ inert neutron-reflective material] through the final stages. These pared to the speed of the explosion itself are evidence of the very __ investigations included the formation of the shock wave in the air, large distances those fragments travelled during the course of the the radiation history of the early stages of the explosion, the for- film sequence. mation of the ‘ball of fire’, the attenuation of the blast wave in air "It is obvious, of course, that only an intentional film record of at greater distances, and the effects of blasts and radiations of the blast could have been made since the probability of having, by [sic.] human beings and structures. General responsibility for chance, a motion picture camera rolling and pointed in the right this work was given to Group T-7, with the advice and assistance direction at the right time at night is exceedingly remote. of [the British Mission consultant] W. G. Penney." “If the explosion was filmed at the Port Chicago site, it would Los Alamos Laboratories Theoretical Division Group T-7 follow that the explosion was planned and anticipated.” (Damage) was formed in November 1944 and had been the former The July 1944 blast caused a crater 66 feet deep, 300 feet wide Group O-5 (Calculations) of the Ordnance Division. As was and 700 feet long in the river bottom. A five-kiloton nuclear noted, William Parsons was the Division Leader for Ordnance. bomb on the surface of wet soil creates a crater 53 feet deep and He reported to J. Robert Oppenheimer. Both O-5 and T-7 were 132 feet in diameter. Some of the blast was absorbed by the ship's headed by Hirschfelder. The responsibility of G-7 was to com- hull, so it may have exceeded five kilotons. plete the earlier investigations of damage and of the general phe- Residual radiation exposures in this area are unknown, as Port nomenology of a nuclear explosion. eo 14 * NEXUS JUNE-JULY 1996