Atom Bombs: The Top Secret Inside Story of Little Boy and Fat Man

by John Coster-Mullen

The author has attended every reunion of the 509th Composite Group since 1994. In 2004, he created a full-scale exact replica of the Little Boy atomic bomb for permanent display at the Historic Wendover, Utah Airfield Museum. Before final delivery to Wendover, it was signed by all of the surviving members of the 509th at their 2004 reunion in Wichita. This book was used by Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) author Dr. Robert S. Norris as the primary source for information on both bombs in his monumental "Racing For The Bomb" biography of General Groves published in 2002. Excerpts from the book pertaining to the Little Boy safing and arming plugs were used by the Defense (Exhibit K) in the famous case of the United States vs. Butterfields Auctioneers (Case No. 02-2776) and were instrumental in U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston's 6/14/2002 decision to reject the government's claim to the plugs. The book was used by Japanese author Kiyoshi Souwa for his 2003 book "Hiroshima Atomic Bombing, The Meaning To Drop It At 8:15 A.M." and by English author Stephen Walker for his 2005 book "Shockwave." The book was also used as the main source for artist Jim Sanborn's 2003 "Critical Assembly" exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery in DC. The book is in the technical libraries at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Aldermaston in England, and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum library. People at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Sandia National Laboratory (SNL), ORNL, LLNL, Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Hanford, DOE, Fermilab, IAEA, Naval Post Graduate School, NRDC, Georgetown University, Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford have all bought copies. He serves as advisor to the National Atomic Museum and The Children of the Manhattan Project Preservation Association.

The author worked with the BBC, which produced a documentary pertaining to the bombs and used his book as source material. The "Tech Effects" program "Hiroshima" also appears on the History Channel and the author is listed in the credits. He has been interviewed by ABC News, National Public Radio in Vienna, Austria, NHK TV Tokyo, Hiroshima Chogoku Shimbun, and The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He gave a presentation at a Manhattan Project Symposium in New York on 6/26/04 and on 8/14/04, along with General Paul Tibbets, at the Wright-Patterson USAF Museum in Ohio. On April 6, 2005, he met with the Hiroshima World Peace Mission delegation at Wendover where they inspected the areas where the original test atomic bombs were assembled and uncovered the fragmentary remains of the grounded copper-covered floor used in the Fat Man test unit final assembly building. In August 2005, he was honored to accept an invitation by the government of Tinian to give a series of presentations on the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan to an audience of both US and Japanese veterans. "I was very much impressed." — Paul W. Tibbets, Brig. General, USAF, Retired "What you have now written is the best, I am sure, of any discussion on the subject I have seen." — Frederick L. Ashworth, Vice Admiral, USN, Retired "Your book contains the best description of the Nagasaki mission I have ever read." — Dutch Van Kirk, Enola Gay Navigator "I think your story is excellent. I don’t recall anything like it before." — George Caron, Enola Gay Tail Gunner "I am very favorably impressed by the amount of information you have gathered together and presented in an interesting fashion." — Norman F. Ramsey, Project Alberta "You have done a remarkable job." — Philip Morrison, Manhattan Project Physicist "Your detailed and unique research is very impressive." — Henry Linschitz, Manhattan Project Chemist "Most amazing document...In all first rate." — Harold Agnew, Project Alberta and former Director of Los Alamos

Genres: History, Military Fiction, War, Nonfiction

138 pages, Spiral-bound

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

The author is a married 59-year-old father of three. His physics teacher in school worked at the University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory during WWII as part of the Manhattan Project. He was a professional corporate and advertising photographer for almost 30 years, including three years as Chief Photographer for the Trane Air Conditioning Company and spent ten years in charge of an advertising photography studio in Milwaukee. He received numerous state and national awards, including a Graphic Design USA DESI Award, and served on the editorial board of Industrial Photography magazine, the Board of Directors of the Chicago Chapter of the ASMP (American Society of Magazine Photographers), and as Vice President of the APM (Advertising Photographers of Milwaukee). This is his first book.

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I felt it started a bit disjunct (mostly because of the author's writing style), I found myself quickly absorbed. There were quite long passages that were very dense detailed and technical but they were immensely interesting. I only wish there was more of the historical details about the actual missions to drop the bombs, but there are other books for that. The text itself wasn't very long, only 87 pages. The appendices, which are the gold mine of this book (almost 300 pages worth!), provide invaluable documentation of primary sources and photos. This is really a fantastic resource for anyone interested in the first atom bombs. Would that it were published in a real book format rather than a spiral bound edition.

[Eugene Miya · Rating 4 out of 5]

While a strange, somewhat disconnected series of author collected papers, this book fills in some details left out by other more popular books like Rhoades The Making of the Atomic Bomb.

This book published almost 2 decades later was a fine on one of my chance visits to Wendover Air field.

This book includes figures like: roughly how many Little Boy Mark I were planned (about 100), and how over-engineered (most people would not think about this): Little Boy was over engineered by 50% and the Mark III Fat Man was over-engineered with a yield 4 times critical mass.

There's a lot of other stuff, but I can see I know a couple of the critical sources.

[John Doe · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is exceptionally detailed and basically contains everything there is to hope to know about development and testing of first two atomic weapons unless you are privy to Restricted Data. Technical descriptions are thorough, but are very accessible for general populace.

[Salil Sharma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite an informative book about the making and delivering of the atomic bombs. Although the real gems are photographs and documents related to the mission.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The definitive history of the only two nuclear weapons used in a war. Well-researched, well-written, and constantly updated.

Highly recommended to anyone seeking to expand their knowledge of the technical side to Fat Man and Little Boy.