Memorandum from Major General Leslie Groves to Secretary of War Henry Stimson
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A
WAR DEPARTMENT
WASHINGTON
18 July 1945
MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF WAR.
SUBJECT: The Test.
1. This is not a concise, formal military report but an attempt to
recite what I would have told you if you had been here on my return from New
Mexico.
2. At 0530, 16 July 1945, in a remote section of the Alemogordo Air Base,
New Mexico, the first full scale test was made of the implosion. type atomic
fission bomb. For the first time in history there WPA a nuclear explosion.
And wha+ an explosion
TRUMAN
OVERHWEND
he book WHE not dropped from
an. airplane out was exploce. or a platform on top of a 100-foct high steel
tower.
3. The test was successful beyond the most optimistic expectations of
anyone. Based on the data which it has been possible to work up to date, I
estimate the energy generated to be in excess of the equivalent of 15,000 to
20,000 tons of TNT; and this is a conservative estimate. Data based on measure-
ments which we have not yet been able to reconcile would make the energy release
several times the conservative figure. There were tremendous blast effects.
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World War, 1939-1945
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