'l'l-ll: Claim {Alum Newsletter Museum,Foundation Fall 2008 YQF; “£9: - THE LIFE AND EXCITING TIMES OF GUY CHARLES THRONER, JR. AT THE NAVAL ORDNANCE TEST STATION [945-1953 by Guy C. Throner PROJECT CAM EL AND THE PUMPKIN BOMB (An Excerpt) Editors Note: Guy C. Throner recently contacted the China Lake Museum foundation and offered his autobiography. He had finished his book in 200l, which was written for his children and grand children. As one the pioneers at China Lake and having served here for eight years, he consolidated several chapters into one presentation, titled as shown in the above introduction. We will publish excerpts in the China Laker from time to time. Mr. Throner’s cover letter to his biography states: "I will cover a bit of my experience prior to my arriving in China Lake. I received my Navy commission in August of I943. I volunteered for bomb disposal duty and was sent to Bomb Disposal School at the American University in Washington, DC. graduating in January I944. I was sent to eight Navy Technical ordnance schools including Under Water Demolition (Frog Man School), and then to Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, Italy. and made the invasion of southern France. I ended in Marseilles doing bomb and mine disposal work. We disposed of 600 tons of unexploded ordnance including 26] tons of magnetic/acoustic underwater mines in three months. By Decem- ber ourjob was done. The port was cleared of dangerous material and it was operating in support of General Patton’s Army. We were ordered back to Washington in mid-December. In the end of February. I had received my orders to report for duty at NOTS Inyo— kern. ....And now on to the story.” Shortly after arriving and getting settled into quarters, Lt. Dave Camahan, my boss, was asked by the Experimental Officer, Commander “Chick” Hayward (Chick later made Vice Admiral, the Commander of the Atlantic Fleet, and eventually Vice Chief of Naval Operations) to assign a bomb disposal officer to a very secret program. I, being the junior officer present, was given the job. The project involved the development of a large free-fall bomb, a strange looking device that wasn’t anything like the bomb one was used to seeing. The project was different in several ways. First, no station aircraft were involved in dropping the bomb. Secondly, no one could tell you anything about the project. Third, the planes that dropped the bombs were bigger than any we had ever seen. They left the station after dropping the bombs, to where, no knew or would say. These were what we would later get to know as the Manhattan Project’s “Fat Man” practice bombs that were dropped. The development of the implosion version of the atomic bomb, code named “Fat Man.“ was assigned to California Institute of Technology by General Leslie Groves and Dr. Robert Oppenheimer. Los Alamos had proven that the implosion concept would work in the detonation of a prototype design in the Alamogordo test, but Los Ala- mos was very busy with the development of the gun bombs called the “Thin Man,” and “Little Boy” — the bomb dropped on Heroshima. They gave the task of making a implosion type design to Caltech and NOTS. The team was given the completejob of making the weapon except for the Plutonium pit which would be provided by the nuclear reactors at the Hanford Nuclear Facility at Richland, Washington. {We knew that something went inside the bomb but had no idea what it was until after the war had ended}. Page I , OCR Text: 'l'l-ll: Claim {Alum Newsletter Museum,Foundation Fall 2008 YQF; “£9: - THE LIFE AND EXCITING TIMES OF GUY CHARLES THRONER, JR. AT THE NAVAL ORDNANCE TEST STATION [945-1953 by Guy C. Throner PROJECT CAM EL AND THE PUMPKIN BOMB (An Excerpt) Editors Note: Guy C. Throner recently contacted the China Lake Museum foundation and offered his autobiography. He had finished his book in 200l, which was written for his children and grand children. As one the pioneers at China Lake and having served here for eight years, he consolidated several chapters into one presentation, titled as shown in the above introduction. We will publish excerpts in the China Laker from time to time. Mr. Throner’s cover letter to his biography states: "I will cover a bit of my experience prior to my arriving in China Lake. I received my Navy commission in August of I943. I volunteered for bomb disposal duty and was sent to Bomb Disposal School at the American University in Washington, DC. graduating in January I944. I was sent to eight Navy Technical ordnance schools including Under Water Demolition (Frog Man School), and then to Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, Italy. and made the invasion of southern France. I ended in Marseilles doing bomb and mine disposal work. We disposed of 600 tons of unexploded ordnance including 26] tons of magnetic/acoustic underwater mines in three months. By Decem- ber ourjob was done. The port was cleared of dangerous material and it was operating in support of General Patton’s Army. We were ordered back to Washington in mid-December. In the end of February. I had received my orders to report for duty at NOTS Inyo— kern. ....And now on to the story.” Shortly after arriving and getting settled into quarters, Lt. Dave Camahan, my boss, was asked by the Experimental Officer, Commander “Chick” Hayward (Chick later made Vice Admiral, the Commander of the Atlantic Fleet, and eventually Vice Chief of Naval Operations) to assign a bomb disposal officer to a very secret program. I, being the junior officer present, was given the job. The project involved the development of a large free-fall bomb, a strange looking device that wasn’t anything like the bomb one was used to seeing. The project was different in several ways. First, no station aircraft were involved in dropping the bomb. Secondly, no one could tell you anything about the project. Third, the planes that dropped the bombs were bigger than any we had ever seen. They left the station after dropping the bombs, to where, no knew or would say. These were what we would later get to know as the Manhattan Project’s “Fat Man” practice bombs that were dropped. The development of the implosion version of the atomic bomb, code named “Fat Man.“ was assigned to California Institute of Technology by General Leslie Groves and Dr. Robert Oppenheimer. Los Alamos had proven that the implosion concept would work in the detonation of a prototype design in the Alamogordo test, but Los Ala- mos was very busy with the development of the gun bombs called the “Thin Man,” and “Little Boy” — the bomb dropped on Heroshima. They gave the task of making a implosion type design to Caltech and NOTS. The team was given the completejob of making the weapon except for the Plutonium pit which would be provided by the nuclear reactors at the Hanford Nuclear Facility at Richland, Washington. {We knew that something went inside the bomb but had no idea what it was until after the war had ended}. Page I , China Lake Museum,China Laker - Newsletter,China Laker 2000s,China Laker 2008,Vol+14+No+3+Fall+2008.pdf,Vol+14+No+3+Fall+2008.pdf Page 1, Vol+14+No+3+Fall+2008.pdf Page 1