Project Alberta, also known as Project A, was a section of the Manhattan Project which assisted in delivering the first nuclear weapons in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.
Project Alberta was formed in March 1945, and consisted of 51 United States Army, Navy, and civilian personnel, including one British scientist. Its mission was three-fold. It first had to design a bomb shape for delivery by air, then procure and assemble it. It supported the ballistic testing work at Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, conducted by the 216th Army Air Forces Base Unit (Project W-47), and the modification of B-29s to carry the bombs (Project Silverplate). After completion of its development and training missions, Project Alberta was attached to the 509th Composite Group at North Field, Tinian, where it prepared facilities, assembled and loaded the weapons, and participated in their use.
Origins The Manhattan Project began in October 1941, just before U.S. entry into World War II. Most of the project was concerned with producing the necessary fissile materials, but in early 1943, the project director, Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves Jr., created the Los Alamos Laboratory, also known as Project Y, under the direction of Robert Oppenheimer to design and build atomic bombs. Within the Los Alamos Laboratory, responsibility for delivery lay with its Ordnance Division, headed by Captain William S. Parsons. With the Ordnance Division, the E-7 Group was created with responsibility for the integration of design and delivery. Led by physicist Norman F. Ramsey, it consisted of himself, Sheldon Dike and Bernard Waldman.
The size of the Thin Man bomb under development at Los Alamos in 1943 reduced the number of Allied aircraft that could deliver the bomb to the British Avro Lancaster and the American Boeing B-29 Superfortress, although the latter required substantial modification. Any other airframe would have had to be completely redesigned and rebuilt, or carry the bomb externally. Parsons arranged for tests to be carried at the Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgren, Virginia in August 1943. No B-29s or Lancasters were available so a scale model Thin Man was used, and dropped from a Grumman TBF Avenger. The results were disappointing, with the bomb falling in a flat spin. This indicated that a thorough test program was required.
Further testing of Silverplate B-29 aircraft and Thin Man and Fat Man bomb shapes was carried out at Muroc Army Air Field in March and June 1944. Testing shifted to Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, in October. Project Y controlled the scheduling and contents of the tests, which were carried out by the Flight Test Section of the 216th Army Air Forces Base Unit as Project W-47. The tests were supervised by Ramsey until November, when Commander Frederick Ashworth became Parsons's head of operations, and assumed responsibility for the test program. The test bombs were assembled by the 216th Army Air Forces Base Unit's Special Ordnance Detachment. Tests continued until the end of the war in August 1945. At first only the Ordnance Division's fuse and delivery groups were involved, but as the tests became more detailed, and live explosives were incorporated into the test bombs, other groups were drawn into the test program.
Organization
Project Alberta, also known as Project A, was formed in March 1945, absorbing existing groups of Parsons's Ordnance (O) Division that were working on bomb preparation and delivery. These included Ramsey's delivery group, now called O-2, Commander Francis Birch's O-1 (Gun) Group, Kenneth Bainbridge's X-2 (Development, Engineering, and Tests) Group, Robert Brode's O-3 (Fuse Development) Group and George Galloway's O-4 (Engineering) Group.
Parsons became the head of Project Alberta, with Ramsey as his scientific and technical deputy, and Ashworth as his operations officer and military alternate. There were two bomb assembly teams, a Fat Man Assembly Team under Commander Norris Bradbury and Roger Warner, and a Little Boy Assembly under Birch. Philip Morrison was the head of the Pit Crew, Bernard Waldman and Luis Alvarez led the Aerial Observation Team, and Sheldon Dike was in charge of the Aircraft Ordnance Team. Physicists Robert Serber and William Penney, and US Army Captain James F. Nolan, a medical expert, were special consultants. All members of Project Alberta had volunteered for the mission.
In all, Project Alberta consisted of 51 Army, Navy and civilian personnel. Army personnel were two officers, Nolan and First Lieutenant John D. Hopper, and 17 enlisted men from the Manhattan Project's Special Engineer Detachment. Navy personnel were Parsons, Ashworth, Lieutenant Commander Edward C. Stephenson, Lieutenant (junior grade) Victor A. Miller, and eight ensigns. The remaining 17 were civilians. The 1st Technical Service Detachment, to which the personnel of Project Alberta were administratively assigned, was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Peer de Silva, and provided security and housing services on Tinian.
In addition, there were three senior officers on Tinian, who were part of the Manhattan Project but not formally part of Project Alberta: Rear Admiral William R. Purnell, the representative of the Military Liaison Committee; Brigadier General Thomas F. Farrell, Groves' Deputy for Operations; and Colonel Elmer E. Kirkpatrick, who was responsible for base development, and was Farrell's alternate. Purnell, Farrell and Parsons became informally known as the "Tinian Joint Chiefs". They had decision-making authority over the nuclear mission.
These scientists and technicians would move to Tinian as an independent unit of the Manhattan Project. According to Farrell, their primary mission: "(1) complete the bomb design for aerial delivery, then procure and assemble it; (2) continue the ballistic testing program at Wendover along with the additional modifications of the new Silverplate B-29s to perform the mission; and (3) train the ordnance crews in preparation for deployment overseas and, once on Tinian, assembling test bombs as well as the active bombs, loading them into the aircraft, and escorting them to the target -- to ensure proper delivery in case of technical problems that might develop during the flight." Parsons and Ashworth, "personal representatives of General Groves aboard the aircraft," had the title of "Weaponeer."
Tinian Manhattan Project and United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) officials agreed in December 1944 that operations would be based in the Mariana Islands, and the following month Parsons and Ashworth held a conference with USAAF officers to discuss the logistics of establishing such a base. In February 1945, Ashworth traveled to Guam bearing a letter for Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz informing him of the Manhattan Project. Up to this point it had been expected that the 509th Composite Group would be based on Guam, but Ashworth was struck by the congestion in the harbor and the shortage of construction units there. USAAF suggested that he take a look at Tinian, which had two good airfields, and was further north, an important consideration for potentially overloaded aircraft. Ashworth toured Tinian with the island commander, Brigadier General Frederick V. H. Kimble, who recommended North Field. Ashworth agreed, and had Kimble hold them for future use.
Groves sent Kirkpatrick to supervise construction on Tinian by the Seabees of the 6th Naval Construction Brigade. Three identical air-conditioned buildings, normally used by the navy for bombsight repair, were constructed for bomb assembly: Little Boy assembled in Building No. 1, Pumpkins assembled in Building No. 2, and the first Fat Man assembled in Building No. 3. Two redundant hydraulic lift bombing-loading pits were constructed 126 inches wide, 240 inches long, and 80 inches deep. There were five warehouses, a shop building, and assembly, ordnance and administrative buildings. Ramsey overcame the problem of how to ship through the San Francisco Port of Embarkation. The port wanted a detailed list of what was being sent so it could track it to ensure delivery, but what needed to be shipped was still subject to last-minute change. He simply designated everything as a "bomb assembly kit". Three of these, one for Little Boy, one for Fat Man and one spare, were shipped to Tinian, which was now codenamed Destination O, commencing in May. Kirkpatrick arranged for everything to be shipped direct to Tinian rather than via Guam, as was usual.
To meet the schedule, the 509th Composite Group's commander, Colonel Paul Tibbets, had his ground echelon depart Wendover on 25 April, followed by his air echelon in May. The 1st Ordnance Squadron carefully packed the Pumpkin bombs and Fat Man assemblies that they had received from Project Camel, the assemblies being sets of bomb components without the fissile pit or modulated neutron initiators. Uniforms were issued to Project Alberta's civilian personnel, and Nolan administered immunization shots. A Project Alberta Advance Party was created, consisting of Sheldon Dike for Air Force liaison, Theodore Perlman for Little Boy, and Victor Miller and Harlow Russ for Fat Man. The rest of the Fat Man team prepared the case-less Fat Man bomb used for the Trinity nuclear test. Parsons and Warner had decided that the combat use of the Little Boy would proceed regardless of the outcome of the Trinity test.
The Advance Party departed Los Alamos for Kirtland Field, New Mexico, by bus on 17 June. Accompanied by Major Bud Uanna and other members of the 1st Technical Service Detachment, they flew in C-54 "Green Hornets" of the 509th Composite Group's 320th Troop Carrier Squadron via the Port of Aerial Embarkation at Hamilton Field, California, and arrived on Tinian on 23 June. Sheldon Dike accompanied bombers of the 509th Composite Group's 393d Bombardment Squadron on practice bombing missions against airfields on Japanese-held Truk, Marcus, Rota, and Guguan. The rest of the Advance Party prepared the Little Boy assembly facility. They were joined on 6 July by a team under Edward B. Doll of the Fusing Group, who prepared for Pumpkin Bomb missions.
On 8 July, the Technical Service Detachment, and 509th Group, moved into the 13th Seabee Camp on Tinian. This included X-unit Ensigns John L. Tucker and Lesley Wilson Prohs, code name for the bomb electrical detonators, and ensign Bernard J. O'Keefe, who carried the final assembly drawings for Fat Man. On 14 July, Robert Furman departed Los Alamos with the Uranium-235 for Little Boy. The final phase of the project, dropping of the bombs in Operation Centerboard, was on schedule.
The rest of Project Alberta departed for Tinian following the successful completion of the Trinity test on 16 July. The remainder of the Little Boy assembly team arrived on 22 July, followed by Parsons, Ashworth, Purnell, Farrell and the remainder of the Fat Man assembly, Pit, Observation and Firing teams. The whole of Project Alberta was assembled on Tinian by 25 July, except for members who were couriers for bomb parts. Nolan arrived on 26 July on the cruiser , along with Major Robert Furman, Captain James F. Nolan, and Captain Charles H. O'Brien of the 1st Technical Services Detachment, with the Little Boy body and the Uranium-235 projectile slug. Three Green Hornets arrived the same day. One carried Parsons and George T. Reynolds, while a second contained the physics team. A third included Jesse Kupferberg and Raemer Schreiber with the plutonium Fat Man core. Birch accompanied the Little Boy uranium target.
The physics team included Dr. Norman Ramsey, Dr. Luis ALvarez, Dr. Roger Warner, Dr. Henry Linschitz, Dr. Robert Serber, Dr. Lawrence H. Johnston, Dr. Arthur B. Machen, Dr. Nora Asey, T/3 Eugene L. Nooker, T/4 Frank Fortine, T/3 Vincent Calsea, and T/3 Arthur W. Collins.
On 28 July, three high explosive spheres for the Fat Man bomb, left Kirtland on three B-29s bound for Tinian.