August 1945 at Oak Ridge's X-10: the bombs and the end of the war

The panel at the X-10 Graphite Reactor. U.S. Department of Energy.

Inside the X-10 Graphite Reactor building at Oak Ridge National Laboratory — the world's first reactor built to run continuously, now part of Manhattan Project National Historical Park — one panel tells the end of the story the building began. It sets out ten days in August 1945, and the part Oak Ridge's neighbours in the Manhattan Project played in them.

Ten days

What the panel shows

• The crew. Seven men lined up in front of the nose of the B-29 Enola Gay, some in Army uniform, others in T-shirts and shorts.
• The clouds. Two aerial photographs: a thick white column rising to a round cloud, and a column punching through a cloud layer to spread into a mushroom.
• The news. A grinning couple holding a newspaper with the headline that Japan had accepted Allied terms, and a crowd waving papers reading "War Ends".
• The President. A portrait of Truman in a dark suit and wire-rimmed glasses.

The cost

The panel closes with the war's toll: about 60 million people died as a result of the Second World War, fewer than half of them in uniform, and more than 418,000 Americans died in combat.

Visiting

The reactor stands inside the secure grounds of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in Tennessee. It can be seen only on a guided tour.

Sources

Written from "Oak Ridge X-10: 1945 — The Bombs Drop, World War II Ends", National Park Service, Manhattan Project National Historical Park, describing a panel by the U.S. Department of Energy; both are works of the United States government in the public domain.