For all of us who know of William L Laurence's famous paean to the first atomic bombs (Dawn over Zero), how many of us also know of Nobel winner John Steinbeck and his similar paean to the Norden Bombsight (Bombs Away) ?
None ?
It was never supposed to be that way.
1945's atomic bomb was classically a weapon of total imprecision .
Drop it somewhere over a city (anywhere) and it can be guaranteed to destroy all the city's war factories, whether they were targeted or not on that raid, along with a few hundred thousand people.
But at the celebratory and futuristic 1940 New York World's Fair, there was seemed to be no need for such a terribly crude weapon; one so certain to unnecessarily kill and destroy much else beyond a few deliberately targeted war factories.
Instead what was called for were daylight raids by small teams of high level B-17 bombers, equipped with the top secret Norden Bombsight, raids which would see them drop their bombs right on target : 'into a pickle barrel from 15,000 feet'.
America's war future was in precision aerial bombing that would win the war quickly, cleanly and cheaply -- and with the minimum of civilian casualties.
Air Force boss Hap Arnold picked famous novelist Steinbeck to pen his praise to precision bombing in light of these expectations.
But when precision bombing proved an abject failure by late 1942, the atomic meatgrinder simply moved up in priorities as Plan B and another book was prepared for the postwar presses.
Why not, because as long as there was a war on, the military totally controlled access and information and also had plenty of money to ease the work of any favoured author, editor and publisher.
Spin, spin, spin.
One way or the other, the post 1945 'war of words' would be won by Washington's military and scientific bureaucrats - regardless of the sorry realities on the ground overseas...
Showing posts with label hap arnold. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hap arnold. Show all posts
Monday, February 23, 2015
Sunday, July 8, 2012
newest kids on the block: EARTHLINGS
500 years of Skygods
Skygods have been around for 500 years, if not thousands of years, miners of the Earth, its cut 'n' run artists.
But Earthlings are genuinely new - growing gradually in numbers since the end of WWII, with three prominent growth bumps in 1945, 1955 and 1965.
V-2 ballastic rockets and the A-Bomb convinced America's leading Air Force commander Hap Arnold that under Modernity, war had changed profoundly.
1945: 36 Hour War
This in turn led Life Magazine, in the Fall of 1945, to do a special feature on a 36 hour war totally destroying New York, based on nuclear tipped rockets launched from Africa. No hemisphere was any longer free from the horrors of total war.
Combine this with the revealed horrors of Modernity's Eugenics at Auschwitz, and we see the ushering-in of the beginnings of our post-hegemonic age: Modernity no longer had the uncontested support of middle class humanity.
1955: Fallout from Operation Castle Bravo
It was the world's first true H-Bomb test and its most famous: fallout from this American test in a remote Pacific atoll first killed a Japanese fisherman a 1000 km from the site, then mixed into the atmosphere to fall onto food all over the world.
Our bodies prefer to take up fallout's deadly Strontium 90 atoms, over those of life-giving calcium.
Once permanently installed in our bones, they ignited (the then always fatal) childhood leukemia.
Like the plagues brought to us by Modernity's rapid new international jet travel breaking glacial national quarantines, it once again reminded us that no spot on Earth was remote enough to be safe from events in any other part of it.
1965: No Life - Ever - on Mars or Venus : This is Life's only Lifeboat
In 1965, we began getting accurate scientific measurements from the atmospheres and surfaces of Mars and Venus - our only likely alternative homes to Earth.
Hard Science Fiction, the porn of Modernity, had fed us delusions for 100 years that we could ruin Earth and then move easily to Earth 2.0 on Mars or Venus. No more: both were revealed as cold and hot versions of 'Hell On Wheels' .
The hippie, alternative, counter-culture, green, environmental , global-commensalist movement began in earnest : EARTHLINGS....
Skygods have been around for 500 years, if not thousands of years, miners of the Earth, its cut 'n' run artists.
But Earthlings are genuinely new - growing gradually in numbers since the end of WWII, with three prominent growth bumps in 1945, 1955 and 1965.
V-2 ballastic rockets and the A-Bomb convinced America's leading Air Force commander Hap Arnold that under Modernity, war had changed profoundly.
1945: 36 Hour War
This in turn led Life Magazine, in the Fall of 1945, to do a special feature on a 36 hour war totally destroying New York, based on nuclear tipped rockets launched from Africa. No hemisphere was any longer free from the horrors of total war.
Combine this with the revealed horrors of Modernity's Eugenics at Auschwitz, and we see the ushering-in of the beginnings of our post-hegemonic age: Modernity no longer had the uncontested support of middle class humanity.
1955: Fallout from Operation Castle Bravo
It was the world's first true H-Bomb test and its most famous: fallout from this American test in a remote Pacific atoll first killed a Japanese fisherman a 1000 km from the site, then mixed into the atmosphere to fall onto food all over the world.
Our bodies prefer to take up fallout's deadly Strontium 90 atoms, over those of life-giving calcium.
Once permanently installed in our bones, they ignited (the then always fatal) childhood leukemia.
Like the plagues brought to us by Modernity's rapid new international jet travel breaking glacial national quarantines, it once again reminded us that no spot on Earth was remote enough to be safe from events in any other part of it.
1965: No Life - Ever - on Mars or Venus : This is Life's only Lifeboat
In 1965, we began getting accurate scientific measurements from the atmospheres and surfaces of Mars and Venus - our only likely alternative homes to Earth.
Hard Science Fiction, the porn of Modernity, had fed us delusions for 100 years that we could ruin Earth and then move easily to Earth 2.0 on Mars or Venus. No more: both were revealed as cold and hot versions of 'Hell On Wheels' .
The hippie, alternative, counter-culture, green, environmental , global-commensalist movement began in earnest : EARTHLINGS....
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