If a pilot was “good,” he was selected to go to Utah to train in B-29s but overall, simply being “good” didn’t make the cut. The trainees of the 509th Composite Group had to be the best of the best. It was determined that if such a weapon were used, the target would have to be strictly “a military one,” so the Japanese city of Hiroshima was chosen as that first target, and the intense training of the 509th Composite Group would be put to use. While he was still alive, Roosevelt wondered whether this new weapon might “be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous ark.” 3 A huge decision weighed on the president’s shoulders, whether to use the apocalyptic weapon in order to save American lives or hold back the weapon and have the war with Japan continue for months, possibly years more. 2 President Truman’s diary revealed his thoughts after the news of the successful test. The United States successfully tested the first one on Jin the Alamogordo desert of New Mexico.
The top-secret Manhattan Project was a two million-dollar investment in nuclear research, and the initial outcome was three atomic bombs. In order to demonstrate superiority in military power, it was in the United States’ best interest to beat Nazi Germany in the race for a nuclear weapon. This was the first atomic bomb that was successfully dropped by the United States bomber Enola Gay on August 6, 1945, and it marked the beginning of the Nuclear Age. The city “was hidden by that awful cloud…boiling up, mushrooming, terrible and incredibly tall.” 1 Horror, destruction, and death rose over the city of Hiroshima. Clear and out of range, the crew members looked back at what was left. Tail gunner George Caron was able to recognize and warn the crew when the second shock wave was about to hit. They did not know what hit them through all the commotion, the blindness, and the ear ringing, as the plane “cracked and crinkled.” That was the first shock wave. The crew and witnesses were blinded by the absence of color, by the pure white light.