Visit To Trinity Site

I suppose that there are many places that could be said to be where the course of history was changed. In our trips to the States we have been to many of them: The bus stop in Montgomery where Rosa Parks boarded a bus; The balcony of the Lorraine Motel, where Dr Martin Luther King was assassinated; Dealey Plaza, where Kennedy was assassinated; Fort Sumter, where the first shots of the American civil War were fired; U.S.S. Arizona in Pearl Harbour; Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Yet, though the events of these locations changed history, what happened at the Trinity Site could be said to have changed a civilisation.
The Trinity Site is where the first atomic bomb was assembled and detonated, on July 16th 1945, proving that a new type of weapon worked and paving the way for it to be used on August 6th, to end the Second World War with Japan and usher in a new era of peace, no matter how tense.
Because The Trinity Site it is a national monument it is open to the public but because it is on a military base and still radioactive, access to it is limited to 2 days of the the year. April 2nd is one of those days and we really wanted to get to it. This has meant planning our itinerary round being within striking distance for that day. Oliver Lee State Park is a mere 130 miles from it by public road. However by joining an official Caravan from Tularosa we could cut 40 miles off, as they have permission to cut through the White Sands Missile base.
We had decided that we would join the Caravan. This is what we would call a convoy but Americans call it a caravan. Anyway, we were invited to assemble at the Tularosa High School Football Stadium car park at 7.45 to drive, with special permission, which included police outriders, flankers, leaders and tail end charlies, through the military area of White Sands Missile Grounds, saving about 80 miles on the round trip to the Trinity site. Well 160 cars turned up and it was a very long caravan, led by two coaches of folk who were prepared to spend $45 each for the ride, being escorted through the streets of Tularosa and on to the vast expanse of the White Sands Military base. We had to show our passports and were told not, under any circumstances to take photos in the base (except at Trintiy Site).
It took about an hour and a half driving through the desert, passing some very deserty desert, as well as a number of strange and unexplained military installations, mostly what looked like bunkers, and communication posts, although there was one set of bleachers in the middle of the desert that looked quite bizarre.
Arriving at the site after a 2 hour drive, we parked the van and were able to walk to the actual site of the bomb detonation. We passed the Jumbo, which was a very large steel containment vessel, designed to hold the bomb, so that if the detonators worked, but the atom bomb did not, then the precious plutonium would not be lost. However in the end they had such confidence in their bomb that they did not use it ,so it still remains there for all to see, even though the ends were blown off in later tests.
We walked the short walk through the desert to the actual site. The site itself was surrounded by wire fence, to stop us from going on to secret installation land (desert). The most obvious feature was a large stone obelisk which had been erected at the actual site of the bomb. The bomb had been installed at the top of a 100ft tower, of which nothing remained apart from the foundation of one of the four legs.
When the bomb exploded, a column of hot air sucked up sand from the ground around, heating it to 8500 degrees K, this instantly turned to a radioactive glass like substance called Trinityite. Although much of it was removed by the government the whole site is covered by small fragments of it, although by law you cannot remove any of it. The bomb made a small depression, rather than crater, about 3 feet deep and 50 ft wide, but before it became a national monument much of the depression was filled in.
We stood and looked around for a while, talked to some people, also to some guy with a Geiger counter, who said that there was very little extra radiation at the site. There was a
replica of 'Fat Man', the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. Fat Man was being assembled in the pacific as the first atom bomb was being tested.
After we had visited the actual site of the bomb, we rode a bus to the nearby MacDonald Ranch, where the bomb was assembled prior to testing. Very interesting, but basic.
After this we all got back in our cars and caravanned back through the Missile Base to Tularosa High School and went our separate ways.
We both got a definite sense of this being a historic site. It was a good day out despite being a bit macabra.