Northwest ties to Hiroshima remembered on A-bomb anniversary
Aug 6, 2012, 6:16 AM | Updated: 7:45 am
Over 50,000 gathered in Hiroshima to remember the anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb. (AP photo)
(AP photo)
 Over 50,000 gathered in Hiroshima to remember the anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb. (AP) |
Bells rang out across Hiroshima Monday to remember the
67th anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb,
an anniversary with strong ties to the Northwest.
“You think about the B-29 the Enola Gay that actually
dropped that bomb, designed here by Boeing,” said
historian Feliks Banel in an interview with Seattle’s
Morning News.
For Banel, the top-secret Hanford Nuclear Reservation
where the plutonium was enriched to make the first atomic
bombs remains a marvel. While tens of thousands of people
worked on the project at its peak in the 1940’s, many had
no idea what they were up to.
“People knew something was going on,” he says of the
massive project that exploded among the wheat fields along
the Columbia River. But despite the population swelling
to over 40,000 workers at its peak in the 1940’s, it
remained a secret.
“Some people thought they were making sandpaper there,”
Banel said.
Seattle also made another significant contribution to the
atomic program. General Leslie Groves, who headed the
Manhattan Project, spent his formative years in the city.
“His father was a chaplain at Fort Lawton. So he came
here as a young man, went to Queen Anne and went to the
University of Washington for several years,” according to
Banel.
 Col. Paul W. Tibbets, beside the B-29 Superfortress bomber the Enola Gay, which was designed in Seattle by Boeing. (AP Photo/file) |
Banel recently returned from a visit to Japan, where he
took in museums in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While the
Northwest played a significant role in the development of
atomic bombs, the Japanese don’t seem to draw much
attention to our area.
“There’s a tiny little display that mentions the role of
Hanford in the creating of plutonium for the bomb,” Banel
said.
At Monday’s ceremony, about 50,000 people gathered in
Hiroshima’s peace park near the epicenter of the 1945
blast that destroyed most of the city and killed as many
as 140,000 people. Among them was the grandson of
President Harry Truman, who ordered the dropping of the
bomb and a second on Aug. 9 that year in Nagasaki killing
tens of thousands more and prompting Japan to surrender to
the World War II Allies.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
