Combat Parts makes atomic bomb replica for Highground

DEAN LESAR

TRIBUNE RECORD GLEANER

As the director of the museum at The Highground veterans memorial park west of Neillsville, Theresa Hebert has noticed what catches peoples' eyes and what doesn't. A routine black and white photo of an historical event? Yeah, not so much. But a full-size atomic bomb, now that will make people gape.

That's the idea Hebert had late in 2021 as she was planning a museum display built around World War II events in the Pacific Theatre. She needed a centerpiece, something powerful that would meld with the museum's mission to teach people about the human cost of war. 'What if?' she thought, someone could build a life-size replica of Little Boy, the infamous first atomic bomb that fell on the unsuspecting people of Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945?

Well, yes, great idea, but who could do that, and especially in the relatively short window of time left before the display was set to open? Then, she thought, how about Combat Parts in Abbotsford?

Combat Parts, owned by Dale Hammel, is a machine shop that's known for turning ideas into metal creations. The shop has helped The Highground in recent years on several behind-the-scenes projects such as creating a bottom for the pool of the Fountain of Tears Korean War display, and making metal brackets on which to hang honor plaques. Hammel said his crew can make 'pretty much anything and everything' out of metal, and its services have been a big help when The Highground has needed something.

This project was a bit different, Hebert and Hammel said. First of all, it was large -- about 10 feet in length, and time was short. When Hebert first called Hammel to see if his shop could even do something like that, he said it could, without regard to how long it might take.

'I go, 'Yeah, we'll figure it out,' Hammel said, 'and all of a sudden, she goes, 'You've got like five weeks.'' Combat Parts, which got its name from building parts for a local 'Battle Bots' television show team years ago, is not known for backing away from a challenge. Both Hebert and Hammel began digging into Little Boy research to learn its dimensions, etc.

'He jumped right on it and the whole crew did, too,' Hebert said. 'They did their research, too.'

Hammel said historical photographs were the best source of information. The Little Boy bomb that was loaded onto the Enola Gay on a late summer morning more than 76 years before was 10 feet in length, with a diameter of about 26 inches. It had a nose cone and fins to keep it from tumbling as it plummeted toward its target.

'From all the pictures, we just duplicated it as best as we could,' Hammel said. 'It was trial and error. We'd cut this piece and say, 'OK, that looks right.'' Hammel estimates his crew put about 100 hours into the project. It fabricated dozens of pieces to build the bomb, and welded them together. After Combat Parts' work was done, Hammel sent the structure to Kulas Body Shop in Abbotsford, where owner Paul Erickson took over to paint it.

Unsure of what the exact tone of the original Little Boy was, Hammel said they settled on the traditional Army drab olive green hue. They matched it to an Army bullet box that Hammel's dad had from his days in the service.

Combat Parts also fabricated a wheeled cart onto which the Little Boy replica can be placed. Hammel said they had no photos of that, so the crew made something it felt would resemble the metalwork of the 1940s era.

Hammel said he was intrigued by the construction of the original Little Boy, made in a time before modern machinery was available.

'What they were able to do that many years ago, it was an eye opener for all of us,' he said. 'We had a CNC to make rivets now, they had a manual process.'

What was inside Little Boy was the subject of even deeper fascination. Built over several years in the secretive Manhattan Project labs in Los Alamos, N.M.,the first atomic bomb was fueled by plutonium and operated on a chain reaction theory. It was devised to explode at a certain height over a target city, to maximize the destruction.

Those facts had the Combat Parts crew in awe of what they were building.

'The biggest thing was the size of it and how much devastation it did,' Hammel said. 'It was something really neat. You could see with all the guys, there was a lot of interest in it. All the guys here were looking it up and getting more understanding of what it did.'

The finished product, Hebert said, had the exact impact for which she was hoping. To tell the story of the Pacific Theatre, she said the history of the atomic bomb development and the decision-making process that went into using it was key.

'The most poignant part is the atomic bomb and the Manhattan Project and the dropping of Little Boy on Hiroshima,' she said, 'and the devastation that one bomb in that one moment created.' Hebert said she is one of the people who were at first surprised to learn of the real dimensions of Little Boy (and the 'Fat Boy' hydrogen bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki a few days later). For the devastation it caused, it was not that large.

'I had always envisioned this massive bomb,' she said.

Hebert said Combat Parts' Little Boy replica immediately became the draw in the World War II Highground museum display that opened last December and closed recently. A simple photograph or two would not have had nearly the impact.

'People just walk right by that (a photo),' Hebert said. 'To have the bomb right there absolutely makes people stop in their tracks. People stop and they start reading everything.'

Hebert said the interest in the replica leads visitors to discussions about the use of the atomic bomb. She's heard children of World War II veterans who say, 'their father was completely supportive of dropping that bomb' as Japan was not expected to surrender the mainland without a fight to the death.

'There's discussion of 'Should it have been done?'' Hebert said. 'With all of the discussion, we're happy. It worked the way we hoped that it would.'

Little Boy is not on display right now, and is residing in a crate to make room for other displays. It will be out again from Aug. 3-9, the week of the anniversary of the use of the real bomb. It will come back out starting in mid-September, and will be on display the majority of the time. Hebert said it is also mobile with the cart and can be taken to schools and other venues for educational purposes. It also will be a main focus when fifthgraders from around the area visit the Highground for the annual October education days events.

Hebert said both Combat Parts and Kulas Body Shop went out of their way to make sure Little Boy was done well so it would have the impact it has.

'Their enthusiasm was really cool,' she said. 'Their workmanship was really almost artistic.'

Hammel said the project was a meaningful one for him and his employees. When someone comments to him that making Little Boy must have been difficult, he demurs.

'This is easy. I didn't have to be in the war,' he said. 'This is a privilege and and an honor to do this.'

made in