Deke Parsons Atomic Bombs

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The Forgotten Man: Deke Parsons and the Atomic Bomb Despite his vital role in the production of the first atomic bombs, William Parsons is often not given credit for all he did for the Manhattan Project. This lifelong military man accomplished more in his life than anyone could have expected of him from his common beginnings. These achievements of Parsons are most notably related to his role in the Manhattan Project, in which he held critical positions in both Project Y and Project Alberta. Along with these, he played a large part in preparing for and participating in the drop of Little Boy at Hiroshima. To start with, William was born on November 26, 1901, in Evanston, Illinois, to Harry and Clara Parsons. Several years later, due to his …show more content…

The entire bomb ended up being ten feet long, which was not abnormal. Because of this common design, Deke and his group decided that it was unnecessary to test Little Boy before using it in …show more content…

Within this project, William’s responsibilities included, according to Christman “converting nuclear devices into weapons with predictable ballistics; modifying aircraft to accommodate the bombs; coordinating a delivery plan with the Air Forces; supervising field test of non-nuclear components and full-scale bomb models; selecting an advance base within bombing range of the enemy; and planning the facilities and procedures for assembling the bombs overseas.” The first of these responsibilities Parsons and his group took care of was deciding on Tinian, an island 1500 miles away from Japan, as their site to create and launch the bombs. Then he had the non-nuclear elements of the bombs tested to the point that the failure rate was less than .1 %. At the same time, Deke assisted with the Trinity test by helping decide on the date and make a schedule to ensure that Fat Man was ready in time. In addition, he witnessed the explosion of the implosion bomb from a B-29 on July 16, 1945, the Trinity test

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