If the Trinity, NM “UFO” crash of August 1945 was indeed the crash of an unknown aerial vehicle the suggestion that it was an alien spacecraft which, after flying millions of miles through space, just happened to bump into the tall radio tower at the Trinity site and then fell to earth is absurd. Besides that, if the unknown aerial vehicle which did crash was some US military aircraft it would be equally naive to assume that its flight there was unconnected with the very first Atomic Bomb explosion which had taken place there a month earlier.
This Trinity atomic test of July 16th 1945 and the subsequent bombing by the US of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was what dramatically altered the balance of power in the Pacific War against Japan. Before that the only option that America had for ending this bloodthirsty conflict would have been a massive naval invasion of Japan similar to the 1944 D-Day landings in France. Such an invasion and the later land battles to occupy and subjugate Tokyo, the heart of the Japanese Empire, would quite inevitably have cost the lives of tens of thousands of US servicemen. Nor was there any guarantee of success.
For those who are unfamiliar with the Manhattan Project and the testing of the world’s first Atomic Bomb at the Trinity Test Site in New Mexico in July 1945 I can recommend the Wikipedia article Trinity (nuclear test). One should read this to understand the immense geopolitical consequences of the successful Trinity test.
President Harry S. Truman who had only assumed office in April 1945 was well aware of the appalling cost in American lives that this planned invasion would entail and suddenly, with the successful Trinity atomic test, a second option had become available to him. He was well aware of the awful responsibility he had in taking the decision whether or not to order the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I believe that Truman made the right decision in order to end the war.
The surrender of Japan at the end of August 1945 thankfully averted the need for a full-scale invasion by the US military. But for all of August top US commanders must have been asking “What if Japan does not surrender?” Further atomic bombs dropped on Japanese cities might have deadly effect but still the Japanese might refuse to surrender. What then? Perhaps there would still have to be a US invasion but one from the air and it would have be in zones that had just been devastated by atomic bombing and where there would not be any opposition. Plans and testing of the required hardware for such an aerial invasion should go ahead anyway until such time as the war was won.
For those of us who remember the Vietnam War the assumption might be that US troops and equipment would have been flown into war zones in large military helicopters. However no such helicopters were available in 1945 and one has to look back at how troops had been flown into battle zones during World War II. One method was the massed drop of paratroopers from the air into predetermined positions, possibly behind enemy lines. That sometimes proved successful but often the paratroopers and their equipment were widely scattered and lost if they all failed to assemble at some agreed position. An alternative method which kept squads of soldiers and equipment together was the use of military gliders containing perhaps 10 - 15 men plus equipment which would intentionally crash land in a straight line on (hopefully) flat ground. This of course would be a one-way mission as the glider couldn’t take off again even if it landed without any damage.
Glider troops participated in many of the major campaigns in the European Theater of Operations including the invasion of Sicily, the Normandy invasion (D-Day), Operation Market Garden and the crossing of the Rhine. They also participated in the war in the Pacific.
I suggest that if a “UFO” really did crash land at the Trinity Nuclear Test Site on August 16th 1945, it was the test flight of just such a military glider which had been specially equipped with protective shielding against nuclear radiation. Also, that the glider could have contained “volunteer” occupants who were effectively being used as guinea pigs.
