After that everything started to get hotter and everything of that type. And then they had a test of one of the first atomic bombs in Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16 of 1945. If you were a poker player you would say you were betting on the call. And we had started preparing to drop the atom bomb in the fall of 1944 before we even had a bomb. So this effort had been going on a long time ever since the beginning of the war when Einstein wrote a letter to Franklin Roosevelt saying that it might be possible to make an atomic weapon. They built three cities in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Los Alamos, New Mexico and Hanford, Washington just to produce, to research how to make the bombs and make the materials then from which to make the bombs. There were hundreds of thousands of people working on the Manhattan Project. The Bomb was developed by the Manhattan Project. But the day before was the important day, because you have to go back and realise what happened during this period. Theodore Van Kirk: Well that day wasn’t that the important today because the bomb was dropped by, 9.15 and 8.15 in the morning Tinian time, 9.15 Tinian time, 8.15 Hiroshima time. So, if you could now, take us through the steps of that fateful day. I am joined by that man today Theodore Van Kirk. Lindsay Garfield: Today only one of these twelve crew members of the Enola Gay live to tell the story.
