OVER A YEAR AGO

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 34, 9 August 1945, Page 7

OVER A YEAR AGO

DATE OF BOMBING SET

NEW YORK, August 8

Brigadier-General Thomas Farrell, aide to Major-General Leslie Groves, who is in charge of atomic bomb de-1 velopment, disclosed that the date for dropping the first bomb was set well over a year ago. The British and American scientists thought for' a while that they were racing against the Germans.-who were known' to have begun work on a similar bomb.

Last March Allied bombs destroyed a laboratory -at Oranienburg in which

the German scientists were working on the atomic bomb. When they heard about the laboratory General George C. Marshall and General H. H. Arnold sent a courier from Washington with oral orders to General Spaatz to destroy the building.

General Farrell added that the Allies after entering Germany learned that the Nazis were years behind the British and American scientists.

Captain William Parsons, the navy ordnance expert who designed the atomic bomb, said he began work in June, 1943, to perfect an explosive that could be carried in comparative safety in a plane for the length of time required to fly from the Marianas to Jaoan.

He explained: "The bomb cannot be controlled like other bombs.. It still must be checked and patted to the last minute by the weaponer. This will be true until it is more fully developed. : "However, we could not delay its use for farther development, because it is worth too much to end the war."

He added that though he was close to the project he had been in the dark about some of the phases, and said: "I have learned a lot from the handout given to correspondents."