Command and Control

The effects of ionizing radiation — primarily gamma rays emitted during the first minute after detonation — were even more disturbing. Perhaps one fifth of the deaths at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were due to “radiation sickness.” People who’d survived the blast and the fires soon felt nauseated and tired. Some became ill within hours, while others seemed perfectly healthy for days before feeling unwell. Gamma rays had damaged the ability of their cells to replicate. The symptoms preceding their deaths were horrific: fever, vomiting, delirium, bloody diarrhea, internal bleeding, bleeding from the eyes and the mouth.

For decades some historians have questioned whether the use of atomic bombs was necessary. They have argued that Japan was already militarily defeated, that the blockade of Japanese ports had strangled the country’s economy, that an American invasion would never have been required, that a conventional bombing campaign alone could have forced a surrender, that the Soviet Union’s declaration of war on Japan had a greater impact than the atomic bombs, that a demonstration of one atomic bomb would have provided a sufficient shock to the Japanese psyche, that a promise the emperor could retain his throne would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

These counterfactual arguments, though compelling, can never be proved. But the historical facts remain. Hiroshima was destroyed on August 6. Two days later the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. Nagasaki was struck on the ninth, and the following day, General Korechika Anami, the minister of war, still urged the Japanese people to fight, “even though we have to eat grass and chew dirt and lay in the field.” On August 14, Emperor Hirohito overruled his generals and agreed to an unconditional surrender. “The enemy has for the first time used cruel bombs,” he explained, “and the heavy casualties are beyond measure.”

Potential Hazards

For a moment Powell and Plumb just stood there, stunned, looking down at the fuel pouring out of the missile and the white mist floating upward, reaching level 6, level 5, level 4.

Oh, my God, Plumb thought, we’ve got to get the hell out of here.

Powell radioed the control center. There’s some kind of white, milky substance in the air at level 7, he said. And that’s all he said.

Captain Mazzaro told the PTS team chief, Charles Heineman, that his men should leave the silo immediately. Heineman ordered them to evacuate and return to the blast lock.

Powell motioned to Plumb: let’s go. The missile was now shrouded in fuel vapor, and the cloud was approaching the platform where they stood.

Mazzaro was puzzled. He wondered what this white substance could be. He thought about the maintenance that had been performed in the silo earlier in the day. What could the stuff be? He didn’t want to notify the command post at Little Rock Air Force Base until he had a better idea of what was happening. Mazzaro asked Heineman, who was sitting nearby, if he could think of anything.

The Klaxon went off, and the FUEL VAPOR LAUNCH DUCT light on the commander’s console began flashing red.

Powell and Plumb left the silo and closed the door. Powell wanted to take the elevator down to a lower level, look at the base of the missile, and assess the damage. But the team chief ordered him and Plumb to get out of the cableway and enter the blast lock, where the backup team was stationed. Roger Hamm and Gregory Lester opened blast door 9 for them, let them in, and then Lester quickly pulled it shut. They popped the helmets off their RFHCOs, as Hamm locked the door. Powell threw the wrench handle onto the floor and cursed.

Mazzaro turned off the Klaxon. The FUEL VAPOR LAUNCH DUCT light made no sense. Why would that come on, when the PTS crew was pressurizing the stage 2 oxidizer tank? He asked for vapor readings from the mine safety appliance, which were displayed on a panel in the blast lock. Three old-fashioned gauges there showed the vapor levels in the silo. Needles on the gauges moved to the right as the amount of vapor increased. The PTS team reported that the oxidizer level was ten parts per million — and the fuel vapor level was forty parts per million, almost the maximum reading. One of those gauges had to be wrong. There couldn’t be fuel vapors and oxidizer vapors in the silo at the same time; the two would have mixed and caused an explosion. Mazzaro wondered which gauge was correct. Then the needle on the fuel vapor gauge surged all the way to the right, and the MSA spiked.