Page:Military Occupation and Military Relations of the Allied Forces, Dossier 1, November 1945.pdf/13

 STATEMENT BY BRIG. GEN. T. F. FARRELL CHIEF, ATOMIC BOMB MISSION

We have made a preliminary inspection of Hiroshima. Our doctors stayed over in Hiroshima, in order to make a further study of those injured by the explosion of the atomic bomb. Detailed studies of the effects, both physical and on personnel, will be continued in order that we may have a true picture of the results of the explosion.

Detailed measurements of the city were made by our scientific personnel to determine if there was any radio activity present. No measurable radio activity was found under the point of detonation or elsewhere on the ground, street, in the ashes, or on other materials.

Col. Stafford Warren, Medical Corps, of Rochester, N. Y., who has been the Chief Medical Officer of the project for the past three years and who is an expert in the field of radiology, has made a preliminary check on the casualties. These investigations will continue.


 * Col. Warren's preliminary conclusions are as follows:-

The largest number of casualties at Hiroshima probably resulted from blasts, missles [sic] and fires. The actual numbers and proportions will probably never be known. Many, of course, will die from the initial effects of the explosion. Colonel Warren and his party of doctors have examined a number of patients whose symptoms are such as would be caused by radiation. It is Col. Warren's opinion that those patients who were affected by radiation resulted from a single exposure to a does of gamma radiation at the time of detonation, and that they did not result from the deposit of dangerous amounts of radio activity on the ground. His conclusions are based on the information obtained as to locations of the affected individuals at the time of the blast, and on the results from the New Mexico test as related to the detonation at Hiroshima. It is believed by Colonel Warren that the much higher altitude of detonation would prevent the deposit of much radio activity on the ground and, at the same time, would increase the blast effects of the weapon. Persons could survive the blast, missles [sic], or flames, and still be within the comparatively limited range of the gamma radiation at the time of the explosion. Some of them could have been shielded by buildings or other obstructions from the effects of the blast and heat.

The bomb was designed primarily as a blast weapon, with secondary effects from heat and light and, at the elevation used, it was expected that there would be a