Erase this life?

In April 2003, shortly after the Iraq War broke out, the 65-year-old Wimotz unexpectedly announced his retirement. This decision surprised colleagues: "He showed no signs of retiring beforehand, and the 'Mother of the Bombs' has also pushed his career to a new peak, so there is no reason to retire like this."

After his retirement, Weimotz rarely appeared in public, and until his death on December 20, 2005, he did not appear in public view. Wimotz's son said his father died of brain cancer at his home in Fort Walton Beach at the age of 67. The U.S. Air Force and Boeing said in a statement: "Wimots continues to put weapons in the hands of soldiers and plays an important role in our national defense."

However, Weimotz's son revealed that three months before his father's death, he finally saw real-life photos of the Alimiya air raid shelter brought back from Baghdad by Iraqi combatants and real archives of Saddam's former regime. Facts have proven that the 1,100 people who died in the Alimiya Air Raid Shelter tragedy were indeed civilians, and the place had never been regarded as a military target. Those photos of humanoid walls made his father "shocked." Wimotz's son described: "Although the sun was bright that day, my father's face looked calm, but his hands were obviously shaking. Silently. From then on, he always looked at the pile of photos from time to time, and this behavior continued until his death."

One month before his death, he suddenly asked Boeing's "Phantom Studio" and the U.S. Air Force Test Laboratory to delete all his information from their web pages without leaving any traces. Weimots gave no explanation when making the request.

The 'Mother of All Bombs' becomes Boeing's money-printing machine

Although Weimots has passed away two years ago, the "bunker crusher" and "mother of bombs" he presided over the design of that year are still Boeing's "money printing machines" – in 2001, the US military customized 125 bombs for the attack on Afghanistan. This type of bomb; in 2003, the US military prepared 300 such bombs for the attack on Iraq (although they were not used in the war); in 2005, the US Department of Defense confirmed that it sold 100 bombs worth US$30 million to Israel The "bunker crusher" is obviously used to deal with Iran. Boeing does not hide that the "Mother of All Bombs" has brought huge profits to it: "'Phantom Studio' has always been one of our company's most profitable enterprises."

Opening the web page of Boeing's "Phantom Studio", you can still see that the team led by Weimots is still busy working on bomb design. According to its website introduction: "Phantom Studio" is Boeing's "advanced research and development institution" and the "creative backbone" of Boeing, providing Boeing with "breakthrough technologies that improve the performance and quality of aerospace and service products."

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If a person is known after his death, then the American "Mother of the Bomb" designer Albert Weimots would definitely not want his "work" to be shared with the Russian "Father of the Bomb" two years after his death. To make a comparison, because for him, the truth about the unjust deaths of hundreds of civilians in Amelia that he learned before his death tortured his conscience.

"I curse him to hell"

"Don't mention the term 'Mother of Bombs' to me," said 46-year-old Muhammad Ali, a resident of Baghdad's Alimiya district angrily: "Although I can hear explosions every day, even though the American man named Weimots The man died two years ago, but I still want to curse him to hell!"

Hariri, the translator who accompanied the American reporter, said: It was the bomb designed by Weimots that killed 11 of his relatives in the Alimiya air raid shelter tragedy, and only he survived.

At 4 pm on February 13, 1991, Ali left the Amiya air raid shelter in Baghdad because he wanted to buy food for his family. At this moment, the 2,270-kilogram "bunker crusher" designed by Weimots penetrated dozens of meters of ground and reinforced concrete walls, blasting a large hole in the air raid shelter. The fire was accompanied by the huge pressure generated by the explosion. Tear the human body into pieces and throw them against the wall. Five minutes later, the second "bunker crusher" penetrated directly into the air-raid shelter from the large hole opened. The violent explosion caused a sky-high fire, and the charred corpses formed human-shaped patterns on the walls. The fire caused a high temperature of 4,500 degrees and burned the old people and children who were not killed to ashes in the blink of an eye. The automatic fire-extinguishing device of the air-raid shelter started on its own and sprayed out a high-pressure water hose. The scalding water mixed with the high temperature of the air-raid shelter scalded all the injured people on the lower floor of the air-raid shelter to death…

The United States officially admitted that two "bunker crushers" by Weimots killed 400 civilians in the Amelia air-raid shelter and that it was an "accidental bombing." However, the Iraqi government and 14 survivors of the Amelia air-raid shelter stated that , the death toll in the air raid shelters exceeded 1,000. Ali said: "It doesn't matter to me how many people die. What matters is that losing every life is cruel, because after all, everyone can only live once. For me personally, the bomb seizure of the American Wimots I lost all my loved ones and the whole world."

Two ups and two downs

Weimots, whom Ali cursed viciously, is the former chief bomb designer of Boeing's "Phantom Studio" in the United States. His "representative works" are the "Bunker Smasher" that became famous in the Gulf War and the "Bunker Smasher" that turned out before the outbreak of the Iraq War. The mother of all bombs.”

Wilmots was born in DeFuniak Springs, a small town in Alaska, USA. He grew up in Mobile. He graduated from Mississippi State University with a major in mechanical engineering. In 1962, he entered the U.S. Department of Defense and later became the Boeing Company. Weapons design expert.

"Weimerts was a genius in bomb design," recalled former colleague John Christie. "The year we entered the Department of Defense, the Vietnam War broke out. As the war prolonged, frontline commanders continued to complain to the Pentagon that Vietnam The tropical jungle is so dense that even though the U.S. military is equipped with helicopters, they often cannot find an open space to land after flying over the designated target. As a result, they have to circle around to find a place to land. This aspect can easily make the original plan worse. On the other hand, the sudden loss of effect increases the chance of the Vietnamese People's Army shooting down the helicopter. Therefore, frontline commanders hope that the Pentagon can provide a way to open the forest clearing in the shortest possible time and at the same time eliminate the threat of the Vietnamese army on the ground. ' way."

"Weimots and we were just newborn calves. Soon we had the Echizen design of the vacuum bomb. This bomb is very powerful. When it explodes, it will not only knock down and smash the surrounding obstacles, but also absorb the effective explosion area in a short time. The air inside makes all living things disappear.”

"The power of the vacuum bombs after they were delivered to the Vietnam battlefield was indeed extraordinary. When the commando helicopters were preparing to land, the fixed-wing attack aircraft aimed at the area where they were expected to land and bombed them. A simple heliport could be blown up in 10 minutes. At the same time, Eliminate all Viet Cong guerrillas that may be lurking in the jungle." After the Vietnam War, vacuum bombs were deployed to the forefront of the confrontation between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in Europe, becoming one of the most powerful conventional weapons to deter the Soviet army.

This enabled the young Weimots and his colleagues to reach the first peak of their careers: the Ministry of Defense awarded him the "Civilian Distinguished Service Medal" and gave him and his colleagues bonuses. At the same time, many military industry giants offered him beckon, Boeing is one of them. In 1982, Weimots, who had served in the Department of Defense for twenty years, left the military and joined Boeing to continue his career in bomb design. Boeing gave this well-known bomb design expert generous treatment: an annual salary of up to one million U.S. dollars, a free luxury villa, plus a generous commission on arms, and Weimots ushered in the second peak of his career.

Just as Weimots was racking his brains to come up with a new bomb design, the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union changed, and the confrontation between the East and the West tended to ease. Along with this comes a reduction in the appeal of big bombs. A researcher at "Phantom Studio" who did not want to be named said: "In the four years from 1985 to 1989, 'Phantom Studio' received almost no orders, so much so that Boeing executives were skeptical about whether to continue to give orders to Phantom Studio. Motz's high salary, secret discussions on whether to disband 'Phantom Studio'… We were panic-stricken at that time, and even Wilmots was silent for a long time, so much so that during a studio party, he drank too much and said with emotion: 'No. There’s room for a big bomb!'"

Weimotz's son also confirmed that during that time, his father switched to designing hand grenades and joked to himself: "I am killing a chicken with a sledgehammer!"

The Gulf War that broke out in 1991 gave the originally frustrated Weimots the opportunity and passion to revive. Weimotz's son said: "When my dad designed the GBU-28 'bunker breaker', it was a record, because it only took 28 days to complete all the work from design to test explosion. My dad told me excitedly later that : 'It's really efficient. We actually designed and tested it in less than a month, and then spent another year making up the drawings. It really set a record for bomb design!'" Although the GBU-28 was only used in the Gulf War Two bombs were used, and the one that exploded was Amelia, but its power was witnessed by the whole world, and the US military purchased hundreds of bombs at once, thus earning back money for Boeing and Weimotz's team. Huge returns.

Ironically, between then and before 2001, Weimots actually became a U.S. member of the United Nations weapons inspection team and went to Iraq many times to inspect "weapons of mass destruction"!

After the 9/11 attacks, the global anti-terrorist war launched by the US military brought the bomb designed by Wimotts to the forefront again and again, making it a "star bomb against terrorism". For example, in 2001, it was dropped in Afghanistan. Tora Bora Mountains in the east so that they could kill Bin Laden and scare the hell out of local terrorists. Abdullah Janar, a "base" suspect currently detained in Guantánamo, described the scene of the explosion of the "bunker crusher" and said: "After the earth-shattering sound, our hole where 80 jihadist brothers were hidden was completely wiped out. , and those of us hiding deep in the cave three kilometers away also felt that the ground was shaking, just like a strong earthquake had occurred, which was really scary."

In 2002, war clouds were once again looming in the Gulf region, and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory placed another bomb order with Weimots. New designs for larger bombs were soon coming. As for the name of the new bomb, Wimotz decided on "Mother of Bombs." The origin of this name, the staff of "Phantom Laboratory" revealed: "This is thanks to Saddam, because when Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1991, his operation code name was 'Mother of War'. This originated from AD In 637, the Arabs defeated the Persians at the Battle of Qadisiya. After that, Saddam had the "Mother of Retreat", "Mother of Lightning", etc., and the US military also followed suit and created the "Operation Marine Corps". 'Mother', 'Mother of Notifications'… Inspired by this, and because the bomb was going to be used against Saddam, Weimots named his bomb 'Mother of Bombs'."

The powerful "Mother of All Bombs" was not used in the Iraq War, but it played the role of "conquering the enemy without fighting": Eight days before the outbreak of the war, that is, on March 11, 2003, the U.S. military The media publicized the news of the successful test explosion of the "Mother of All Bombs" with unusual high-profile: Just after 2 p.m. that day, a C-130 aircraft dropped this huge bomb at the western test site of Iglin Air Force Base, and then dropped it from the landing point. There was a thunderous noise nearby and a huge mushroom cloud formed!

Weimots also gave an exclusive interview to the media, talking about the "Mother of Bombs". He said that this weapon first produces a large amount of flammable smoke after landing, and then ignites it, destroying the target through this violent explosion. Its main purpose will be to destroy various Iraqi army command centers, bunkers and tank assembly areas hidden deep underground. More importantly, this kind of bomb will have a great psychological shock on the enemy, forcing them to "surrender without fighting", passively avoid fighting, or even flee.

Miles, then chairman of the US Army's Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared that the United States would use all the most advanced weapons available in the war to defeat the United States, which may include a variety of the latest equipment that has just completed testing.