8-4  Philipp H. Klein

Manhattan Project Contribution:

As a relief switchboard operator, I worked mostly when the Lab was closed.  However, I sometimes connected calls for the extension associated with Nobel Laureate Harold C. Urey (it was among those marked for immediate attention by a red, rather than white light) to the outside world or to Long Distance.  I like to think that calls from that extension were especially important.


Most Memorable Story:

Some of the military personnel attached to the S.A.M. Labs also took courses in the Engineering School at Columbia University, where I was a full-time student.  I became acquainted with several of them.  Those who lived in Chicagoland liked to call home periodically.  At the time, a three-minute phone call from New York to Chicago cost something like three dollars.  However, by my use of tie lines to the Chicago part of the Manhattan Project, I could set these soldiers up with a local call to their families.  For nearly 60 years, I have justified this unauthorized use of phone lines by saying that it certainly boosted morale and in no way obstructed the progress of the Manhattan Project.