An Engineer’s Account

Harlow W. Russ (1912-1998) was a dedicated, unassuming aeronautical engineer who in late 1944 became a member of the high explosives and assembly team for the first two atomic bombs used as weapons of war, the culmination of the top-secret Manhattan Project.  Much of this work was carried out at Los Alamos Technical Area in New Mexico, at the time referred to as Site Y, and at Wendover Air Base in Utah.  In June, 1945, Russ was sent to Tinian Island in the Pacific to prepare for and participate in the assembly of the “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” combat atomic bombs.  In 1984 he published a candid and compelling matter-of-fact memoir of his part in this historic undertaking.  In it he describes the extensive preparations made by the 509th Composite Group for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing missions flown by Lieutenant Colonel Paul Tibbets, pilot of the “Enola Gay,” and Major Charles Sweeney, pilot of the “Bock’s Car.”