"Wisconsin physicist Joseph O. Hirschfelder: It was time to get ready for the explosion. There were 300 of us assembled at our post. These included soldiers, scientists, visiting dignitaries, etc. We were all cold and tired and very, very nervous. Most of us paced up and down. We all had been given special very, very dark glasses to watch the explosion. Rice physicist Hugh T. Richards: I was at Base Camp, 9.7 miles from ground zero."
"Harvard chemistry professor George B. Kistiakowsky: The thing was ready to be fired. Just before the time counting came to zero I went up to the top of the control bunker, put on dark glasses and turned away from the tower. I was rather convinced that the physicists exaggerated what would happen from a nuclear point of view. Well, I was wrong. Brig. Gen. Thomas F. Farrell, Manhattan Project field operations chief: Dr. [J. Robert] Oppenheimer held on to a post to steady himself. For the last few seconds, he stared directly ahead."
About 300 soldiers, scientists and visitors gathered at observation posts before the July 16, 1945 Trinity test, wearing very dark glasses and feeling cold, tired and extremely nervous. A thunderstorm briefly delayed the shot from 2:00 a.m. to 5:30 a.m., but the device detonated precisely at 5:29:45 a.m. Some scientists had underestimated possible nuclear effects and were proven wrong. Witnesses described the event as a dramatic, startling culmination of collective effort in the remote New Mexico desert, producing a mix of awe, relief and immediate awareness of catastrophic destructive capability.
Read at Harvard Gazette
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