Letters to the Editor
Nuclear Fallout
I was generally very pleased with Steve Byas’ excellent article revealing many of the myths regarding nuclear power (“Nuclear Power: The Promise vs. Irrational Fear,” June 3 issue). But I have to note one error that appeared in the article a couple of times, as in the caption for the photo of post-blast Hiroshima. He states: “The bombs killed many thousands, in the blasts themselves and the ensuing fallout.” This triggered my memories as a nuclear weapon operations and safety officer in the Air Force.
There were no fallout casualties in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. While there were many radiation casualties, these were all from exposure to the flash, which emits instant and intense radiation.
There is a simple reason for this: Fallout consists of vaporized and condensed material that is actually in contact with the fireball of the nuclear explosion. The 20-kiloton bombs over Japan were “air burst” attacks, designed to maximize blast and fire effects. They detonated at an altitude where the fireball did not contact the ground — so the only solids consumed and lifted in the mushroom cloud were the bomb’s own components. There was no mass of solids from buildings and such sucked up, and then dispersed downwind ominously as tiny particles of dust. So there were zero fallout casualties in Japan from the atom bombs we dropped.
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