Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki Booklets

Report published by the Manhattan Engineer District on June 29, 1946 describing the effects of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6, 1945 and Aug 9, 1945, respectively. Along with a companion volume of photographs taken during the survey by the Manhattan Engineer District Investigating Group, previously released. The two forming a set that was given to Capitan Harris Davis of Knoxville Tennessee who was at Nagasaki on September 16th, 1945 while serving with the 2nd Marine Division, 6th Marine Regiment, one week after the bombing. First report: 8vo (10.5 x 8), side stapled with stiff printed wrappers, (ii) 42 pages plus 2 fold-out maps and a diagram. Second report: 8vo (10.5 x 8), side-stapled with stiff printed wrappers, 101 pages including 2 fold-out maps, a diagram,, and 98 full-page, captioned b/w photographs. Light bumping and rubbing to extremities of wrappers. This books cover The Manhattan Project Investigating Group, Propaganda, Summary of Damages and Injuries, Main Conclusions, The Selection of the Target, Description of the Cities before the Bombings, The Attacks, General Comparisons of the two Cities, General Description of Damage Caused by the Atomic Explosions, Total Casualties, The Nature of an Atomic Explosion, Characteristics of the Damage Caused by the Atomic Bombs, Calculations of the Peak Pressure of the Blast Wave, Long Range Blast Damage, Ground Shock, Shielding/Screening from the Blast, Flash Burn, Characteristics of the Injuries to Persons, Burns, Mechanical Injuries, Blast Injuries, Radiation Injuries, Shielding from Radiation, Effects of the Atomic Bombings on the Inhabitants of the Cities, Appendix: Father Siemes' eyewitness account. The next two lots that follow are from the same Captains estate. The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada. The Manhattan Project employed nearly 130,000 people at its peak and cost nearly US $2 billion (equivalent to about $28 billion in 2026). From 1942 to 1946, the project was directed by Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the bombs. The Army program was designated the Manhattan District, as its first headquarters were in Manhattan; the name superseded the initial codename, Development of Substitute Materials, for the entire project. The project absorbed its earlier British counterpart, Tube Alloys. Over 80 percent of project cost was for building and operating the fissile material production plants. The project proposed both highly enriched uranium and plutonium as fuel for nuclear weapons. Enriched uranium was produced at the Clinton Engineer Works in Tennessee. Plutonium was produced in the world's first industrial-scale nuclear reactors at the Hanford Engineer Works in Washington. These sites were supported by dozens of other facilities across Canada, the US and the UK. The weapons' designs were produced at the Los Alamos Laboratory (Project Y) in New Mexico, and resulted in two weapon designs used during the war: Little Boy (enriched uranium gun-type) and Fat Man (plutonium implosion). The Fat Man design was initially a low priority fallback option, as it was complex and required explosive lenses, but in 1944 it was confirmed that plutonium from Hanford was not suitable for a gun-type bomb because of the high proportion of plutonium-240. The first nuclear device ever detonated was an implosion-type bomb during the Trinity test, conducted at White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico on 16 July 1945. The project was responsible for developing the specific means of delivering the weapons onto military targets, and for the use of the Little Boy and Fat Man bombs in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The project was also charged with gathering intelligence on the German nuclear weapon project. Through Operation Alsos, Manhattan Project personnel served in Europe, sometimes behind enemy lines, where they gathered nuclear materials and documents and rounded up German scientists. Despite the Manhattan Project's own emphasis on security, Soviet atomic spies penetrated the program. In the immediate postwar years, the Manhattan Project conducted weapons testing at Bikini Atoll as part of Operation Crossroads, developed new weapons, promoted the development of the network of national laboratories, supported medical research into radiology, and laid the foundations for the nuclear navy. It maintained control over American atomic weapons research and production until the formation of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in January 1947.