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National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Little Boy

Oral History
Masao Tomonaga’s Interview
May 14, 2019
 [Note: This interview contains graphic descriptions of the injuries suffered by atomic bomb victims.]  Cindy Kelly: It is February 19, 2019, and I am in Nagasaki. [I am] Cindy Kelly, Atomic Heritage Foundation. I would like to have my guest say his full name and spell it. Masao Tomonaga: My name is Masao Tomonaga, honorary director […]
Oral History
John Coster-Mullen’s Interview
June 1, 2017
Cindy Kelly: I’m Cindy Kelly. This is January 30th, 2017. We’re in Washington, D.C., and I’m with John Coster-Mullen. I want to start by asking him to say his name and spell it, please. John Coster-Mullen: John Coster-Mullen, J-O-H-N C-O-S-T-E-R-M-U-L-L-E-N. Kelly: Great. Some have called you “Atomic John.” Coster-Mullen: Yes.  Kelly: I want you to back up, tell us, you […]
Oral History
Clay Kemper Perkins’ Interview
May 15, 2017
Cindy Kelly: Today is February 3rd, 2017. I am Cindy Kelly, Atomic Heritage Foundation. I am in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with Clay K. Perkins. I would like him to first say his full name and spell it. Clay Perkins: It’s Clay, middle initial K for Kemper, last name Perkins. C-L-A-Y K P-E-R-K-I-N-S. Kelly: Tell us about […]
Oral History
Ray Gallagher’s Accounts of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Missions
July 9, 2015
Raymond Gallagher: My name is Ray Gallagher. I am from Chicago, Illinois. The purpose in making this tape is because of an event that took a part of my life, and also of the lives of a group of men of which I was associated in 1945, during World War II. I was assigned to a […]
Oral History
Robert Furman’s Interview
September 26, 2013
Robert Furman: Robert Furman. F-U-R-M-A-N. I was an assistant to General Groves in the Manhattan District, in his Twenty-First Street offices here in Northwest. And I joined him in late autumn of ‘43 and left him right after the war—right after the end of the war. Cindy Kelly: Can we—just to—no one’s going to hear […]
Facility
Gun Site
October 19, 2012
The Gun Site (TA-8-1) was where Manhattan Project scientists and engineers developed and tested the gun-type weapon design. The design for the “Little Boy” bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, was developed here. The gun design was straightforward. Basically, a “bullet” of nuclear material was fired at very high speed into a second […]