CHAPTER 10: TRINITY -THE BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING PART 3

By MARK HENDRICKS - as told to Steve Douglass 

Note - this story was compiled from many conversations with "Mark Hendricks" but written by Steve Douglass.

I know it's sounds cliché but you had to be there to understand what a universe-shattering event the detonation was. It's rather hard to describe how beautiful and how soul-shattering and humbling the experience of setting off of an atom bomb is. There was nothing to compare it to. Even the enormous stack of TNT we had set as a gauge for the test did nothing to prepare us for the experience of Trinity. 

The radio kept the beat with the steady pulse of the timing signal broadcast from the second SCR299 truck (at South +10,000) and the voice countdown to bomb detonation only added to the incredible tension. Oddly enough, between the pulses I could hear what sounded like a symphony playing in the background, wavering in and out like ghostly orchestra providing a eerie soundtrack. 

Spooky, but I instantly recognized it for what it was, the miles of cables acting like a giant radio antenna again, apparently the recently soaked desert was drying-out the and good connection to ground was being lost, and the music was creeping back into the system. There was no time to troubleshoot it. 

With everything recording and the countdown now on automatic there was nothing to do but wait for the event.  At the thirty seconds mark, my heart really got thumping. I stepped out of the truck to take one last look at the tower (with the device on top of it set to explode) and that's when it hit me that we were probably too close, somewhere a bit less than 10,000 yards, just over five and a half miles.

 At this point a hundred miles would have felt too close. I could clearly see "Jumbo" mounted up on its' tower, a fleeting glimpse of what was a very expensive aborted idea, using a huge iron vessel designed to contain the plutonium if the device was calculated to be a dud. Jumbo was abandoned when smarter heads prevailed, rightly thinking that the idea of trying to contain a nuclear explosion would have just resulted in vaporized radioactive iron being flung all over south central New Mexico. 

I briefly thought about what Bum had said about the chance of an uncontrollable chain reaction igniting the sky. I comforted myself with the idea that if it did ignite the atmosphere, we'd never know what hit us. Although Bum said it was a very, very remote chance, there were some eggheads who were placing side bets on atmospheric ignition. I chalked it up it gallows humor, the eggheads way of reliving tension. Besides, if the worst did happen, nobody would be around to collect.

At about a 20 seconds before detonation I watched as the eggheads and technicians spread out thin mattresses on the ground and began laying on their stomachs with their feet towards the tower. Our group at the north shelter made up of some 30 some-odd military and civilians all took their places side-to-side on their bellies in the dirt, regardless of social status or rank.  

Looking out across the valley I  also caught a glimpse of the barrage balloons, big floating blimp type aircraft hoisting important gizmos and measuring devices above ground zero waiting to be destroyed. I wondered about my buddies at the 10,000 yard west shelter. How many of us will survive to see tomorrow? I thought. 

Bum suddenly stepped up and handed me some welders glass. For a moment it didn't click. I'm not a welder. What did he expect me to weld? 

 

"What's this for?" I asked. 

"SO YOU WON'T GO BLIND IDIOT!" he shot back very loudly, startling me. He never ever yelled. 

He then shone his flashlight on his face. "Look at me!" he said - with a dead-serious tone that I had never heard before. In that light he looked quite bizarre, like a mad scientist from a monster movie, welders goggles on the top of his head and dripping with security and radiation dosimeter badges. 

"Don't look at the blast until the light on the mountaintops begin to dim, or you might go blind! I'm not kidding, it could blind you." he said both arms shaking me, making sure I understood. I could see a slight tremble on his lips. It was clear even the usually unflappable Bum was feeling the immense tension leading up to detonation which only raised my level even more, if indeed it could be. 

I suddenly flashed back to the fear I had as a kid whenever there was a tornado warning. I had this sudden urge to run and hide behind the biggest lava boulder I could find but my sensible self reminded me there was nothing I could really do at this point but ride it out in the SCAR. 

I've always wondered why during live-changing moments like this, time seems to slow down. The countdown to detonation and the lead up to it are as crystalized in my brain as a bug in amber. Although in my life I've seen other nukes go off, nothing was like Trinity. Other tests may have been bigger, maybe more dangerous but Trinity and what it lead to have shaped every moment of my life since. 

Back in the truck I made a quick scan to see if everything was set and working, the radios, the recorder, etc. A sudden vision of the truck (with me in it) being tossed like a toy across the Jornada Del Muerto lava beds, the sharp rocks cutting me to ribbons. I dismissed the thought as quickly as I had it. 

 

As I was thinking to myself, this is taking forever the interior of the truck suddenly lit up like someone had turned on an intense spotlight. I looked out the open back and I could see the surrounding mesas as bright as day, no brighter, the surrounding canyons standing out in start relief against a dark sky. 

Once the light on the canyons began to dim, I noticed everyone standing up, lifting their welders glass to their eyes. 

I grabbed mine. I had to see it. I jumped out of the SCAR and turned to face the explosion. 

I can't adequately put into words what I was seeing. I had totally forgotten about my welders glass and watched it with the naked eye. A towering orange and purple pillar of light reaching up into the atmosphere, It was practically biblical in it's scope and power. When the top of the pillar reached it's ultimate altitude it collapsed on itself forming the now familiar mushroom cap, rolling back into itself, feeding the stem of debris and smoke in a sort of self-perpetuating cycle. 

Suddenly the sound of the explosion overtook us. It was much deeper and sustained that the Jumbo test. You could feel it in your chest and it went on for what seemed forever. the echoes bouncing off the nearby canyon and mountains in a sustained overlapping rumble. 

I looked down at the base and saw a wave of lifted desert fanning out and rushing towards us. I quickly turned my head as the blast wave hit us almost knocking me down. The SCAR rocked but didn't lift up. I did see the UHF antenna (the one with the broken guy-wire) blown down and crashing on a dune with it's antenna now pointing at the sky and not basecamp as it was supposed to. 

I didn't know how to react. I was alive, that was good. Among the egg-heads the reaction was mixed. Some were applauding, some cheering. 

Others held their heads and wept. 

Finally I could remove the goggles and watch the ball of fire rise rapidly. It was surrounded by a huge cloud of transparent purplish air produced in part by the radiations from the bomb and its fission products. No one who saw it could forget it, a foul and awesome display.

Now we are all sons of bitches.

– Kenneth Bainbridge, immediately after watching the Trinity Test

COMING UP NEXT: ATOMIC SPIES AND  STRANGE SIGNALS