Heritage lecture series
On the 61st anniversary of the Nagasaki mission, former Laboratory scientist Lawrence Johnston recalled his work at wartime Los Alamos and of witnessing the first three nuclear detonations in the world to a packed house in the Physics Building Auditorium Wednesday.
Johnston was brought to Los Alamos by physicist Luis Alvarez in 1944 to develop the firing system for Fat Man and later worked with Alvarez on “Project Alberta” to measure the scientific yield of each detonation from an airplane 30,000 feet in the air. Johnston and several other Lab scientists trailed the “Enola Gay” and “Bock’s Car” in their own B-29 “Great Artiste” with recording equipment during the Hiroshima and Nagasaki missions.
Johnston compared life in Los Alamos to an adventure. “To us, it was more like living in a wilderness resort. On a weekend, you could take scenic hikes where the beauty started right at your back door,” he said. He shared other fond memories, including steak night at the cafeteria and an outdoor sunrise Easter service given by Jim Roberts, a physics professor from Northwestern University.
Johnston called the work on Fat Man “a great undertaking” and discussed early problems they had with the firing system. Johnston also told of the feelings associated with the bombs after the war had ended. “Back at Los Alamos there was lots of rejoicing. We won the War! But several important people were having pangs of conscience, most notably Oppenheimer,” he said. “We had stopped the wartime killing, but we had killed a lot of people with our bombs, and worst of all we had let the genie out of the bottle, and now nuclear war would be a specter for the world to face.”
Johnston spoke of the great feelings he had for Los Alamos and its mission. “I think that the greatest tribute to the work at Los Alamos is that there has been no more wars between major powers since 1945. I am glad to have been a part of all this.”
Johnston's talk was part of the Laboratory's Heritage Lecture Series funded by the Director's Office.
