radiation in the laboratories and production areas of the Met Lab and the Clinton Laboratories (code X-10). To carry out the day to day work of the Instrument Group his resources consisted of a Ph.D. physicist, Rudolph Kanne, a graduate student, Gerry Pawlicki. Tom Brill, whose function and organization spot I don't remember, a technician, Dick Fox and the nine Du Pont assignees, all mechanical or chemical engineers with no background in electronics or atomic physics.

          Bill's first job was to teach the Du Ponters the fundamentals of electronics. He sent us to the University Book Store to buy texts on the subject. Much more effective. however, were the lectures he gave us. A locker room in the West Stands had been converted to a small lecture room. Within weeks we understood the circuits for direct and alternating current amplifiers, full-wave rectifiers, oscillators and flip-flop circuits. These lectures on electronics were supplemented by talks on instruments peculiar to nuclear physics, including ionization chambers, cloud chambers, proportional counters and Geiger counters. In the shop we learned how to solder joints, lay out and punch holes in metal chassis from schematic circuit diagrams, lay out circuit wiring and tie it into cables for ease of maintenance.

          In addition to our training in instrumentation, we were introduced to atomic physics. Our group bought all the copies the Book Store had of a recent book, Applied Nuclear Physics, by Pollard and Davidson. More exciting and more informative than the book were the lectures we attended two evenings a week. All 40 Du Ponters and several of the scientists came to hear these talks. Many of the lectures covered work in atomic physics which had already been published. We were issued notes on these talks labeled "Restricted", the lowest classification under the security system. When I left the project in 1945, classification of these notes was canceled and I still have them.

Three lectures dealing with the chain-reacting pile and the transuranic elements were classified "Secret", which required that our notes be recorded in a bound notebook registered by number and charged to each individual. Pages were pre-numbered, so removal of a page could easily be detected. Notebooks could not be removed from the Met Lab. Each day as we left work, our notebooks were deposited in a locked safe. We signed them out each morning in a logbook kept by a custodian.

Although I have no notes, the substance of these lectures is indelibly inscribed in my memory. One, by Dr. Arthur Holly Compton, gave us an overall view of the project. The objective of the Metallurgical Laboratory was to develop a pile to produce element 94. plutonium, and to find a practical way to separate the plutonium from the uranium and mélange of elements resulting from the fission of uranium in the pile. He told us that if a few kilograms of pure plutonium were concentrated in a small volume, an atomic explosion would result. The Clinton Laboratories, code name Site X, located near Clinton, Tennessee would be a semi-works to further develop the pile and separation process, to produce small amounts of plutonium, and to serve as a training site for the production facility. It would be under the direction of the University of Chicago, although it would be designed and built by the Du Pont Company and many Du Pont people would help operate it. Du Pont would be responsible for design, construction, and operation of the production facility to be located at Hanford, Washington, Site W.

Dr. Compton explained that ours was one of several projects administered by the Manhattan District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Other projects at other sites were seeking to isolate uranium 235, which, like plutonium was believed to be capable of