Science: Atomic Duds

One of the secondary possibilities of atomic war, says Chemist Jack De Ment, in The Military Engineer, is atomic duds. During a bombing attack, one city may be spared while other cities near by are heavily bombed. But into the heart of the untouched city, the enemy may drop a peculiar, ominous object to start a destructive panic.

No one could tell immediately the true nature of the object. It might be a genuine dud, i.e., an atomic bomb that did not explode as intended. It might be a delayed-action bomb, or it might be a harmless casing deliberately filled with inert material. The people of the attacked city, unless quickly reassured, would be apt to be as panicked by a cheap dummy bomb as by an expensive real one that might explode any second into a white-hot ball of fire a couple of miles in diameter.

If a dummy bomb should cause the evacuation of the city, with casualties from panic and a long-lasting tie-up, the enemy would have won an extremely cheap victory. If he intended to invade the city, his paratroopers would find it undamaged, nonradioactive, and empty of both defenders and burdensome noncombatants. Enemy troops could move right in and help themselves to provisions in the abandoned stores.

On the other hand, a dud should not be ignored. It may be merely waiting, some subtle device in its innards measuring off the seconds before it explodes. The enemy could drop a few such dangerous sleepers into rivers or harbors just to make sure that dummies dropped later would be treated with proper respect.

De Ment, raising the problem for military engineers to consider, gives no solution. Even experts would have a hard time distinguishing a delayed-action bomb from a dud or a harmless fake, especially if the object had been seen to sink to the bottom of the harbor. Civil defense authorities would have to decide promptly whether to evacuate the city, and a wrong decision either way would prove costly. In any case, the threatening object would have to be investigated, and this would not be a job for the poor in spirit. “An atomic-bomb disposal unit,” says De Ment conservatively, “would require the highest order of training, and its personnel would need to be of very exceptional intelligence, stability, courage and good judgment.”