Bomb: Part Two

Both had come to the conclusion that a fission bomb was technically possible.

Groves knew he could handle the planning and logistics.

The problem was, he was going to have to rely on physicists to figure out how to build the bomb.

“Ruined houses and bombed blocks of flats made gaps in the vista,” remembered Haukelid.

“The notion of disappearing into the New Mexico desert for an indeterminate period,” he recalled, “disturbed a good many scientists.”

He sat in the deep snow, thinking, “And here we are, in Norway, cold and inhospitable, but marvelous all the same.”

“We have four weeks to reconnoiter the plant, get information on the German guards, and check on the landing site.”

None of the team members made any objection to what—for them—was a radical change in plans.

“If you go on up the canyon,” Oppenheimer suggested, pointing east, “you come out on top of the mesa, and there’s a boys’ school there which might be a usable site.”

While construction crews began expanding roads and nailing together new buildings at Los Alamos, Oppenheimer turned to his next task: “a policy of absolutely unscrupulous recruiting of anyone we can lay hands on.”

“We felt disoriented and feverish,” said Ronneberg.

“In short, if fighting breaks out, everyone must act on his own initiative in order to complete the operation.”

“The colossus lay like a medieval castle, built in the most inaccessible place, protected by precipices and rivers.”

They wanted the Germans to know they were soldiers on an official Allied mission—that way, hopefully, the Germans wouldn’t retaliate against Norwegian civilians in nearby towns.

Enraged German commanders were already sending out a ten-thousand-man German force to track down the saboteurs.