ABSTRACT
At 8:15 am on August 6, 1945 US troops flying the Enola Gay dropped atomic bomb "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, Japan, creating a fireball that annihilated everything and everyone in its furious cloud of destruction. Many Americans believed that after this jarring use of new warfare technology the scientists who had masterminded the bomb had packed their bags and returned to quiet academic appointments to resume perfunctory pre-war teaching and research. The Army Chemical Corps planned a 1953–1954 open-air field study in three North American cities that most closely matched the Soviet cities of Moscow and Leningrad in particular physical and structural features. In the second phase of the Army Chemical Corps project the Army arranged for ground-level dispersion experiments in St Louis, which was unique in comparison to other dispersal experiments. The Army continued the open-air releases in St Louis through January 20, 1954, as the day-to-day movements of the urban populace changed with each season.
