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A Physicist with the Air Force

Posted by michael on from the meet-new-and-interesting-people,-and-kill-them dept.

An anonymous submitter - anonymous because of the database crash that wiped out several hours of data today, sigh - sent in this tale about the duties of a physicist during World War II.

3 of 221 comments (clear)

  1. Payment: Old Granddad! by hyrdra · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is an article which really makes me appriciate what we have today. If someone today told me I had to perform computations on a slide-rule while fending from enemy attack, I would think they're joking. But this is what they actually went through.

    My favorite line of the entire article (in reference to the fabrication of slide rules used in the missions):

    But, to avoid paperwork and delivery delays, I chose to have them made at the Harmon Field sheet-metal shop on Guam. At that time, there wasn't much combat damage to B-29s. So the repair crews readily gave up some of their beach time for a few bottles of Old Granddad.

    Yep, things we're certainly different back then!

    --


    "I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
  2. Re:Sounds like a dodged question to me... by Tackhead · · Score: 3, Informative
    > what was the actual answer to Mr. Teller's question? [about whether or not the crew of a B-29 doing a high-altitude demonstration burst over Tokyo Bay would have been survivable]

    From the pilot's own account of the Nagasaki bombing:

    We removed our glasses after the first flash but the light still lingered on, a bluish-green light that illuminated the entire sky all around. A tremendous blast wave struck our ship and made it tremble from nose to tail. This was followed by four more blasts in rapid succession, each resounding like the boom of cannon fire hitting our plane from all directions.

    If that's what a bomb at 1640 feet feels like from 30000 feet and after turning away and hauling ass out of there as fast as possible, then there's... well... to be blunt, I see no effing way a B-29 could deliver a high-altitude demonstration burst and have survived, slide rule or not.

    (By way of reference, the service ceiling of a B-29 is around 33000 feet. Flying to 60000 feet simply wasn't an option with the technology at the time - and the B-29 was the only aircraft capable of lifting something as heavy as a nuke and flying it the required distance.)

    War isn't pretty. War isn't supposed to be pretty. The day war becomes pretty, we've all got problems.

    /me raises a glass to all veterans and all who supported them for jobs well done. Thanks.

  3. Re:Army Air Corp, not Air Force by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    It was only the Army Air Corps up until June 20, 1941. After that it was the Army Air Forces, known informally as the Air Force will before '47.