Atomic dreams

Lawrence Langer was called out of his Bloomington professorship in 1941 to aid the war effort. In fall 1943, Robert Oppenheimer brought Langer to Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to develop the atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project.

Though the use of the atomic bomb against Japan during World War II is a well-documented event, the thought of such a device a century ago was an impossible feat. With war on the horizon in the early 1930s, German chancellor Adolf Hitler started gathering the best scientists from across the globe in attempts to develop an atomic bomb.

“We knew Germany was working on the bomb, which deservedly scared the daylights out of people,” says Hal Kibbey, a former IU News Bureau reporter who interviewed Langer during his time on campus. “People understood very well what Hitler would do with a bomb like that if he got his hands on it.”

And so the United States began to form its own team of scientists to combat the research being done in Europe, with Langer joining as a group leader.

“At that time, it wasn’t something you stopped to think about,” Kibbey says. “This was a race and the stakes were unimaginable. There was absolutely no question at all whether it was the right thing to do.”

After two years of research and testing, the bomb was ready for use. By this point, Germany was out of the war. The United States had made the decision to drop the fi rst live atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. Langer was in charge of teaching the military how to arm the bomb once the plane was in the air.

While Langer’s involvement up to this point is integral and a point of historical pride for many Hoosiers, the last few hours are when things get interesting. On a hot summer night in the Pacific, hours before the bomb was to be dropped over Japan, Langer did the unthinkable. He crawled into the bomb bay of the Enola Gay, stretched out on top of the atomic bomb, and fell asleep.