WI 1942 nuclear experiments in Chicago cause massive explosion

Hard to conceal; Roosevelt would have to own up to it. I did an Alternate Headline having FDR threatening the Axis. I'm not sure if he'd actually do that; but he'd have to do something. He would most likely promise that the research would continue (but to do the tricky stuff away from the big cities.) I would imagine that Hitler and Tojo would definitely not be about to sue for peace. Comments?
 

Glen

Moderator
Hard to conceal; Roosevelt would have to own up to it. I did an Alternate Headline having FDR threatening the Axis. I'm not sure if he'd actually do that; but he'd have to do something. He would most likely promise that the research would continue (but to do the tricky stuff away from the big cities.) I would imagine that Hitler and Tojo would definitely not be about to sue for peace. Comments?

How massive? I think they could have put it out as an industrial accident. Remember, no one knows about nuclear bombs yet, not beyond pulp novels. So no one necessarily puts two and two together.
 
An explosion? Given what they were working with, anything big enough to destroy Stagg Field is pretty much out of the question. Since they didn't know what they had, they were pretty careful. That being said, you could get a nice big neutron spike to kill everyone in the area and render it contaminated for a couple million years. That'd be a little more difficult to explain than a simple explosion, and it's a bit more likely.
 
In my headline, I envisioned a square mile flattened, with 200,000+ fatalities. This may be high; 25,000 may be more accurate. With many nuclear scientists killed, high radioactivity, with horrible burns on survivors it would be difficult to dismiss it as an industrial accident.
 
Simple. Just pass it off as an ammunition-carrier explosion in the Illinois National Guard Armory which is right around the corner. Explain that it set-off chain reactions in other sources - trucks leaking fuel, electric lights blowing up and shorting electricity, neighborhoods set ablaze, gas lines erupting, etc.

I know all these are sort of lame and some of them implausible, but it's wartime and people might take them more seriously. They'll get the truth after demobilization.
 
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