The names for all three atomic bomb design projects during WW II ("Fat Man", "Thin Man", and "Little Boy") were allegedly created by Robert Serber, a former student of Los Alamos director Robert Oppenheimer who worked on the project. According to his later memoirs, he chose them based on their design shapes; the "Thin Man" would be a very long device, and the name came from the Dashiell Hammett detective novel and series of movies by the same name; the "Fat Man" bomb would be round and fat and was named after Sidney Greenstreet's "Kasper Gutman" character in The Maltese Falcon. "Little Boy" would come last and be named only to contrast to the "Thin Man" bomb. The original "Thin Man" had been expected to be as long as 17 feet, but when it was discovered that U-235 would require a slower projectile speed than first measurements had indicated, it was realized that the gun-design could be shortened to 6 feet, and this design was named "Little Boy" in contrast. However, in his memoirs, Paul Tibbets, commander of the 509th Composite Group said the code names were part of an Air Force cover story. According to Tibbets, Project Silverplate, the Air Force program to modify the B-29 to carry atomic bombs, was given the cover story of modifying the B-29 into a passenger plane. One plane was allegedly for the use of Winston Churchill, 'the fat man', and the other for Franklin Roosevelt, 'the thin man.
Matt: CORRECT
Record: 521-437
No comments:
Post a Comment