Manhattan Project
In May 1943, Bainbridge joined the Project Y staff at Los Alamos. First he led E-9, which was charged with instrumentation development. After the lab reorganization of 1944, he worked under George Kistiakowsky as X-2 leader. In this position, he was in charge of "gadget" engineering and test preparations. On July 16, 1945, Bainbridge and his colleagues detonated an implosion bomb. After the explosion of the atom bomb he turned to J.R.Oppenheimer and said, "Now we are all sons of bitches."
Bainbridge was relieved that the Trinity test had been a success, relating in a 1975 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists article, "I had a feeling of exhilaration that the 'gadget' had gone off properly followed by one of deep relief. I wouldn't have to go to the tower to see what had gone wrong."
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