Deke Parsons Atomic Bombs

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

family moving to New Mexico, Parsons started his formal education late at the age of eight. Despite this late start, William passed the entrance exam for the Naval Academy at the age of sixteen. There he was an above-average student, but he did not particularly stand out. He went on to graduate from there in 1922.
Several years after his graduation, Deke decided to continue his education by studying ordnance at the Naval Postgraduate School. In the ordnance program, William learned how to create and improve guns, ammo, and explosives, while also learning how to defend against these. Outside of school, William had found his future wife, Martha Cluverius, who he married in November of 1929. Once he did complete his schooling, Deke was sent to the naval Proving Ground of Dahlgren for his ordnance-related postgraduate research project.
Following his time at Dahlgren, William began to develop a high reputation in ordnance. First, he got the Naval Research Laboratory to support the creation of radar systems for naval ships. Later, he suggested the use of radio proximity fuzes in artillery missiles to Merle Tuve, which allowed the fuzes to be able to tell through radar when the projectile should detonate by how near it was to an airplane. Then Parsons tested the first proximity fuzes over water. After this, because of his successful work with Tuve on these proximity fuzes, Deke was appointed by Vannevar Bush as military overseer of the production of the proximity fuzes, known as Section T. In this role, Parsons demonstrated the effectiveness of the proximity fuzes on the USS Cleveland, where the fuzes took out three pilotless drones.
This strong ordnance reputation and the relationships it helped build were likely what lead to Vannevar Bush selecting Parsons as the head of ordnance at Los Alamos, the lab in charge of creating the atomic bomb, codenamed Project Y. In this position, Parsons was in charge of researching how to assemble atomic bombs in a gun-type design. Although sounding seemingly easy, this turned out to be quite a difficult task from the start as the original challenges included making the gun safe and reliable, along with the the use of newly discovered metals uranium-235 and plutonium within it.
From the start William was not alone in trying to overcome these obstacles, though, as the ordnance division had scientists and ordnance experts within it from its formation, such as Dr. Thompson, Dr. Charles Critchfield, Edwin Rose, and Edwin McMillan. In order to maximize the effectiveness of these and other men under him in the division, Parsons created six groups called, according to Christman, “the Proving Ground Group,” “the Projectile, Target, and Source Group,” “the Implosion Experimentation Group,” “the Instrumentation Group,” “the Fuze Development Group,” “the Engineering Group” and “a Delivery Group.” These were headed by Edwin McMillan, Charles Critchfield, Seth Neddermeyer, Kenneth Bainbridge, Robert Brode, George Chadwick, and Norman Ramsey, respectively. All of these groups were designed to assist in some aspect of the gun-type design of the atomic bomb besides Neddermeyer’s group that worked on an alternative to the gun-type design called implosion, which involved, as stated by Christman, “the use of ordinary explosives to create a nuclear explosion by blowing a shell of fissionable material together in the center of a sphere.” Despite preferring a gun-style rather than implosion design for the atomic bomb, Parsons brought in John R. von Neumann to assist Seth Neddermeyer with implosion research. William then started supporting von Neumann’s new idea of “fast” implosion, which involved, as reported by Christman, “precisely shaped sections of high explosives designed to focus the detonation waves on a ball of plutonium at the center of a sphere.” On top of this, he continued his backing of implosion by bringing in George Kistiakowsky as the head of implosion.
While Deke was solidifying implosion research, the Gun Group was attempting to solve the issue of firing, as stated by Christman, “a plutonium projectile at 3,000 feet per second into a plutonium target a dozen or so feet away in a manner that would not shatter the target before a neutron source had initiated a nuclear reaction.” This group then came across another problem with the plutonium bomb as, according to Christman, “they found that the first samples of pile-produced plutonium contained not only plutonium-239, the desired isotope for the bomb, but also significant amounts of plutonium-240, whose fast neutrons could cause predetonation--that is, a fizzle--in the Thin Man gun.” Due to this predetonation in the gun-type design, the plutonium bomb had to be made into an implosion bomb instead.
Once this was found out, in August of 1944, there was reorganization within the Ordnance Division as Parsons became solely focused on the gun-type uranium bomb and design of both bombs, while Robert Bacher took charge of the applied physics involved with the implosion bomb and Kistiakowsky developed, as reported by Christman, “the explosive components of the bomb, including its explosive lenses.” Within this new role, William concentrated on Little Boy, which was a, according to Christman “gun-type bomb with a uranium-235 bullet.” Due to a much lower velocity needed, as stated by Christman, “1,000 feet per second, or one-third the velocity specified for Thin Man,” Little Boy needed only a gun that was six feet long rather than seventeen.

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

war.
Following the completion of the design of Little Boy, in March of 1945, Oppenheimer put Parsons in charge of Project Alberta, which dealt with getting the first atomic bomb ready for use in war.

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

date.
After the Trinity test William went to Tinian, where he was one of the men in charge of the use of the atomic bombs in the war. Within this role, Parsons helped oversee the assemblage of Little Boy and Fat Man as the nuclear components arrived from the states over the course of the next few months. Then on August 5, 1945, due to several B-29 crashes during take-offs, Parsons decided that Little Boy should be armed in flight on Enola Gay in order to avoid the detonation of the bomb on Tinian if the plane did crash. The following day he went into Enola Gay’s bomb bay and used a detailed list of instructions to arm Little Boy, and after his approval, the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima at 8:15 A.M.
Once the mission was successfully completed, Parsons went back to Tinian, where oversaw the completion of assembly of Fat Man. William then, as reported by Christman, “witnessed the formal signing of the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri on 2 September 1945.” Following the end of WWII, Parsons held a number of positions in the military and participated in research involved with atomic bombs and atomic power. Then on February 2, 1951, Parsons got back to sea when he was put in charge of Cruiser Division Six. A few years later, William began having chest pains on December 4, 1953, after hearing about Oppenheimer’s loss of security clearance. Then due to his wife’s insistence, he went to the naval hospital when his chest pains continued on December 5. There he died of a heart attack.
In sum, William Parsons played a huge part in a few parts of the Manhattan Project. The most integral of these were his roles in Project Y and Project Alberta, which led to the development and assemblage of both Little Boy and Fat Man. In addition, to these he also assisted in the Trinity test and took part in the dropping of Little Boy on Hiroshima. Despite all this, Parsons’ contribution to the overall success of the Manhattan is often overlooked by many.