Alex Wellerstein, for my money, is the sharpest tool in the shed about issues surrounding The Manhattan Project. With the 75th anniversary of the ending of the war in the Pacific sneaking up on us, Alex decides to mention the ideas that journalists get wrong about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He promises more in the coming weeks. Here is the link to his blog post.
For all the folks coming here from Our American Stories, this is a list of links to learn more about Oak Ridge and World War II. The page More great stories has other stories.
This is an amazing summary about the loss of life during World War II. The numbers are staggering. The video is only 18 minutes, but it is the most stunning introduction to World War II I have ever watched.
This is a flickr site maintained by the Department of Energy. The link is to an album of over 1,200 photographs from Oak Ridge during the 1940's. Almost all the photographs are by Ed Westcott. There are many albums on this site, but this one is the largest.
This is the link for the website Center for Oak Ridge Oral History. It is a vast treasure trove of first hand narratives about Oak Ridge over the last 75 years. There is nothing quite like it on the Internet, anywhere.
This is a link to a Washington Post article from May of 2015. It tells the story of the only American military cemetery in Europe where all 8,300 graves are maintained by local volunteers. They have been doing this for over 70 years. If you want to help with this amazing project of gratitude, you are out of luck. There is a waiting list to help care for these graves. A waiting list. Think about it.
The Daily Mail had an interesting article about The Manhattan Project in May of 2018. It was written in conjunction with an exhibit at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.
This link is to a wonderful talk Richard Rhodes gave in Santa Fe, New Mexico in the summer of 2018. It was about Robert Oppenheimer and the talk was given in conjunction with the Santa Fe Opera’s production of Dr. Atomic by John Adams.
This link is to a video done by college student Susannah Outhier about Oak Ridge during the World War II. It was a project for a class she was taking. Neal and Pat Smith, who are interviewed, are Susannah’s grandparents. This is Susannah’s first long form video.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OT7uXdGWDA&t=31s