Category Archives: ManhattanProject

The Apocalypse Factory

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Steve Olson at the Graham Pierce County Library

Steve Olson presented a talk and question & answer session about his newest book, The Apocalypse Factory: Plutonium and the Making of the Atomic Age, at the Graham Pierce County Library on Saturday, February 11, 2023.

The Apocalypse Factory tells the story of plutonium from it’s discovery by Glenn Seaborg at the birth of nuclear fission, the technology of using and testing plutonium as a weapon, the development of Hanford and the reactor complexes, and the Cold War aftermath and reliance on the manufacturing of plutonium.

Much has been written about uranium, the Manhattan Project, and the development of the first atomic bomb used on the citizens of Hiroshima. Mr. Olson’s book looks at the second atomic bomb, using implosion and plutonium, which was used on the citizens of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. More importantly, plutonium pits became the standard for the U.S. stockpile of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons, creating the Cold War and the arms race.

As Glenn Seaborg noted on his discovery of plutonium:

I was a 28-year old kid and didn’t stop to ruminate about it… I didn’t think, “My God, we’ve changed the history of the world.”

(as cited in Olson, 2020, The Apocalypse Factory, p. 31)

Steve Olson is the author of Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens (winner of a Washington State Book Award), Mapping Human History: Discovering the Past Through Our Genes (a finalist for the National Book Award), and other books. He has written for the Atlantic, Science, Smithsonian, and more. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

Ernest Lawrence marker

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Ernest Lawrence marker in the columbarium

Ernest Lawrence was born on August 8, 1901, and died of complications from ulcerative colitis on August 27, 1958. He is interred along with his wife, Mary “Molly” Lawrence, and his parents, Carl and Gunda Lawrence at the Oakland Crematorium and Columbarium.

Lawrence columbarium
Oakland Columbarium

Ernest Lawrence was the winner of the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics for his invention of the cyclotron. He also founded the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Ernest Lawrence and family at the Nobel Prize ceremony
Lawrence and family at the UC Berkeley special ceremony for his receipt of the Nobel Prize. (Left to right): Mary “Molly” Lawrence (his wife), Ernest Lawrence, Gunda Lawrence (his mother), John Lawrence (his brother), and Carl Lawrence (his father). Photo courtesy of Berkeley Lab.

Building upon the cyclotron, Lawrence’s calutrons — hybrids of the cyclotron and a mass spectrometer — were created for the the Manhattan Project for electromagnetic separation of uranium isotopes. The Y-12 plant at Oak Ridge, containing these massive calutrons “racetracks” using over 14,700 tons of silver, enriched the uranium-235 and shipped the first few hundred grams to Los Alamos laboratory in March 1944.

Last voyage of USS Indianapolis

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USS Indianapolis (CA-35) off Mare Island, July 10, 1945

The USS Indianapolis left Hunters Point Naval Shipyard on July 16, 1945, setting a speed record of 74-1/2 hours from San Francisco to Pearl Harbor, arriving on July 19. She was on a top-secret mission carrying the enriched uranium from Oak Ridge and other assembly parts for the “Little Boy” atomic bomb.

Indianapolis continued on to Tinian, arriving on July 26, and delivered the atomic bomb components. Continuing on to Guam for crew changes, she left on July 28 to begin sailing toward Leyte to join Task Force 95.

USS Indianapolis intended route from Guam to Philippines showing location of sinking.

On July 30, 1945, Indianapolis was truck by two torpedoes from a Japanese submarine, causing massive damage. Twelve minutes later, she sunk, taking 300 crew down with her and setting adrift over 900 crewmen.

On August 2, the survivors were spotted by Navy airplanes on a routine patrol flight. Only 316 of the remaining men survived.

USS Indianapolis memorial in Indianapolis, IN

You can visit the memorial for the USS Indianapolis located at the north end of the Canal Walk between Senate Avenue and Walnut Street. The gray and black granite memorial is outdoors and open to the public.