DAWN ABOVE ZERO

The atomic era began at exactly half past five o'clock in the morning on 16 July 1945. The event took place on a stretch of almost desert land about fifty miles in a straight line from Alamogordo, New Mexico, just a few minutes before a new day begins on that part of the globe. In the great historical moment, comparable to when man managed to place fire at his service, the vast energy stored within the atoms was released for the first time; produced then a burst of flames like never before seen on this planet and for a brief moment that, however, seemed eternal, heaven and earth were illuminated by the radiance of many super-suns.

The primordial flame, the first fire produced on earth not originating in the Sun, came as a result of the explosion of the first atomic bomb. It was a dress rehearsal before dropping the bomb on Japanese military targets, if Japan refused to accept Potsdam’s statement about its surrender.

The essay marked the climax of the penultimate act of one of the greatest dramas in our history (I would personally call it tragedy or genocide) and of the history of civilized man; a drama in which our men of science, under the guidance of the weapon of engineers, They were working on forced marches to create the atomic bomb before our enemies, the Germans. With the collapse of Germany, the first act of that drama was concluded. The success with which our task was crowned, in the greatest challenge that man has ever thrown to Nature, came to lift the curtain for the second act. The grand finale came later in the Japanese skies, with a swift curtain drop over the greatest war ever known to history.




I part

"Dawn on Zero"

W.L. Laurence (United States)

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