Newspapers / The Yancey Journal (Burnsville, … / July 22, 1965, edition 1 / Page 3
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FIRST ATOM BOMB -—TEST RECALLED By: Graham E. Jones Spaniards iook.ig for gold four hundred years ago call ed It Valle de Muerta. In 1945, some 300 American scientists came back to the place and made it live up to the name, Valley of Death. That was the place where,' 20 years ago today (July 16, 1945), they exploded the first atom-bomb. Dr. Worth Seagondollar, new head of the Department of Physics at North Carolina State University at Raleigh, was one of the scientists in the valley during the pre dawn darkness of that his toric morning when the bomb was detonated. “The guards got up at th~ee o’clock, an hour before the countdown was scheduled to start. We went out to the trench because we didn’t k'-'ow if the blast would crush our buildings.” In the trench, dug to a depth of four feet by a bull dozer, Seagondollar and the other scientists did what they had been told to do: They put eye shields on and turned their backs toward the tower which held the bomb. Seagondollar did not have a pal- of sunglasses with h'm No road? Noanuomi Tost Mm this / ' l ' It 's the original 4 whoo! drive work and hobby homo With your ‘Jeep’ Universal, you’re boss of all outdoors. Just shift into 4-wheel drive, and you’ve got all four wheels working for you. You hug slippery roads like glue. You’ve got the extra traction to pull you through mud, sand, ice, and snow. And for hunting, fishing, camping, you name it...the ‘Jeep’ Universal Test drive this “Unstoppable” at your ‘Jeep’ dealer’s. Soon. ROBERTS CHEVROLET,BUKK-JEEP DIVISION jjoi" Street Burnsville THURSDAY, JULY 22, 1965 when he got to Valie de Muer ta so he made himself a pair fr-'m blue grass like that found in welder’s hoods. The blast was delayed while a pair of B-29’s mane uvered into position. At 4:20 a. m., the countdown began. At zero, Seagondollar said, “I counted ‘one thousand one, one thousand two and one up to 15 seconds. Then I turned around and looked. “My first reaction was: ‘You darn fool; You forgot to put on blue glass.’ “Actually I hadn’t forgot ten. I had it on. It was just that I could see no trace of blue. Wh*t I saw was. pure white light.” Looking at the glare was “like looking at a photograph er’s flash bulb, except the flash bulb is concentrated and brief. This light was every where and it lasted a long time. About 45 seconds after the blast, the shock wave reached the trench area, propelled bv a fooce eoulvalent to 17,000 to’is of TNT. “It was like the puff of air when somebody slams a door in your face,” Seagondollar recalled. The round was similar to thunder "that rolls and rolls and rolls. A British demolition expert who had helped disarm some of Hitler’s most potent bombs stood next to Seagondollar in the trench. The Britisher kept muttering: “My God. My God. * Within a month A-bomba had been dropped on Hiro shima and Nagasaki and World War n was ended. Seagondollar returned to Valle de Muerta in Septem ber, 1945 with another scien tist and walked into the crat er gouged by the bomb from the earth. “We we~e looking for frag ments of instruments. We didn’t find any. “What we did find was ap palling.” The tower from which the bomb had been suspended, had gone up in vapor—not tom to bits but heated unil it turned to moisture and gas. Concrete posts, used as foundation stones for the 100- foot tower, were still there. '“But, they were many feet shorter.” Seagondollar was amazed that the bomb really had not dug too deep a hole in the valley floo —only eight to 10 feet deep and 30 feet across. « “What was horrifying was what we saw outside the crater.” The desert sand, which had withstood the blazing desert! sun for a good many centur ies before the Spaniards came across, had melted under the heat of the bomb. For about 1,000 yards on every side of the crater Sea gondollar saw not sand but gets you there (and your boat or trailer, tool). It’s a hard worker around your home, farm, or business too. Hauling, pushing, plowing, it’s a real workhorse. Take your choice of half-cabs, full cabs, or convertible top. Plus other options. Kaiser Jaap corporation tolcoo i. omk> murxy, green, glass as thick as three-fourths of an inch. “We also saw the remains of lead bricks. Those bricks had been the size of regular hou e bricks before the blast When we saw them, they were the size of those little snap ba*-* they put out at hotels. ’There wasn’t any mo'ten lead a-ound either, it too had been vaporized.” Seaqrondollar was one of the scientists at Ln S Alamos who worked on establishing the proper critical mass for the A-bomb. The answer, Seagondollar recalled, was to determine “whether we had a critical mass strong enough to break a beaker, or blow up a labo~- atory or the southern half of New Mexico.” What the scientists arrived at a ma-'s strong enough to equal 17,000 of tnt, enough for a city the size of Hirosnima. Now that five nations have nuclear capabilities far ex ceeding the bomb that made the hole in the floor of Valle de Muerta, will man blow himself off the face of the earth? “I hope to high heaven, no,” Seagondollar said. There might even have been a rainbow in the mush room cloud that rose above the desert. Seagondollar notes that with nuclea- power, you can dig a new Panama Canal, make salt water fit to drink, turn the wheels of industry. And, you might even send a space ship into the high heavens.. REST EASY See Us For Your. Hail Insurance • - ■ ■—* ‘ n7ii ROBERTS INSURANCE Burnsville N.C. Pfianr 482*2191 1 y 2 PRICE SALE I I $ S SAVE 50 'e FOR JULY ONLY!! ' \ on RYTEX STATIONERY f * ' > | OFFICE SUPPLY & EQUIPMENT CO. | s Next Door To Northwestern Bank Phone U T-IT-IS £ * — . —•- Jl ANTIQUES West Main Street WF Burnsville, N.C. T . < Annie Hassell Margaret Tyner THE YANCEY RECORD New films In The Library New films recently added to collection available thro ugh the public library in cludes the following four: COLLEGE, 19 minutes in color, an experimental film showing the absract world of the mind that a college edu cation stimulates through broadening that mind. THE LIVELY ART OF PIC TURE BOOHS, 27 minutes in color, interviews three illus trators of children’s books and shows a complete film story within the film that U the wdtk ol oner or the illus trators. NAHANNT, 19 minutes In color, is a beautifully made masculine film documenting the search for a lost gold mine in Canada’s Northwest Territories. PUERTO RICO: THE PEA CEFUL REVOLUTION, 25 min utes in black and white, shows the progress made in Puerto Rico since it started Its “Op eration Bootstrap” program in 1949. Herschel V. Anderson, Au diovisual Consultant of the North Carolina State Library, suggests that a person plann ing to use these films contact his public library at least two weeks prior to his pro gram date in order to re ceive the films on time.
The Yancey Journal (Burnsville, N.C.)
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July 22, 1965, edition 1
3
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