| The preparation of the “Gadget” for the Trinity test, July 1945 in Jornada del Muerto, New Mexico. On July 14 the tent was removed and the device, completely assembled except for the detonators, was raised to the top of the 100-foot tower. For the test, the decision was made to place the bomb on top of a 100-foot steel tower, not drop it. The steel tower was built to support this heavy bomb, because the bomb is composed of this plutonium core, which doesn’t weigh much. It’s got a heavy uranium sphere around it. Then there is 5,000 pounds (2,267 kilograms) of explosives around that, and then a steel casing around that, a small 1. This thing is pretty hefty. They had to raise it up and put it on top of the tower. The reason they did it on top of the tower was because they wanted to maximize the shock wave, the blast effect on the ground. Sabotage was a very real concern. So, in the quiet hours before the test, 1 lonely sentinel stood atop the tower to make sure no 1 came near the “Gadget.” That guard was physicist Norris E. Bradbury (May 30, 1909 – August 20, 1997). Bradbury said, “My personal concern with the Trinity shot was to get that Gadget assembled up on top of the tower, and assemble it on top of the tower. I assembled it at the bottom of the tower, and then get the detonators on it and get them hooked up, and then make sure than nobody monkeyed with the pesky thing while I had control. I sat there. Up until it was clear that nobody else was going to be allowed on top of the tower. I would not let anybody come up unless I was there, because I didn’t want anybody monkeying with it. I was responsible for that thing. Even inadvertently, somebody might brush against it, you know, so I stayed there until the ladder was blocked off. For me to say [if] I had any deep emotional thoughts about Trinity…I didn’t. I was just damned pleased that it went off.” Of course, that tower was vaporized in the explosion. A lot of people come to visit Jornada del Muerto, and they don’t understand that. They think it was just blown to pieces. It was turned to gas. It was sublimated from a solid to a gas in a fraction of 2nd and joined the fireball going up. | |
| Image Filename | wwii1720.jpg |
| Image Size | 3.73 MB |
| Image Dimensions | 5520 x 4371 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | July 14, 1945 |
| Location | |
| City | Jornada del Muerto |
| State or Province | New Mexico |
| Country | United States |
| Archive | Los Alamos National Laboratory |
| Record Number | |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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