Special Engineer Detachment
"In Their Own Words"
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College: Grove City College - Electrical Engineering SED Assignments: Columbia Univ. (NYC); Kellex - New Jersey; K-25 Oak Ridge; and K-25 Power Plant I was one of 6 GI's who left Camp Crowder, Missouri, by train for Knoxville, TN, and then on to Oak Ridge, TN by bus on April 12, 1944. On April 16, 1944, five of us were transferred to New York City and told to contact a Captain Barger on the 22nd floor of the Woolworth Building. None of us had ever been in New York before, but we did finally find the Woolworth Building. As we got off the elevator we were met by a military policeman (MP) whom we told that we were there to see Captain Barger. He led us into an office with a man sitting in a chair dressed in civilian clothes with his feet on his desk. This man introduced himself to us as Captain Barger and said that he had been expecting us. He told us to go out and find a place to live and then report back. He suggested that we try and find a place near Columbia University. In the meantime he had arranged for us to bunk at the New York Elks Club for several nights. We started searching and in 3 or 4 days we found a suitable apartment at 110th Street and Broadway adjacent to a subway entrance. We then went back to see Capt. Barger and he said that we were being assigned to a lab at Columbia University (S.A.M. Lab) but first we must get rid of our uniforms and get into civilian clothes. This caused us problems with the New York City Police Dept. They would stop us and ask to see our draft registration cards. The Army did not give us any kind of identification, but they did provide a telephone number to call in case we were stopped. The phone number turned out to be the New York FBI office. We went to Columbia University and shortly thereafter 4 of us were transferred to the Kellex Corporation gaseous diffusion pilot plant in Jersey City, NJ. This plant was being built adjacent to the site of the M. W. Kellog Company factory. Kellog was one of the largest design and construction companies for chemical process plants and Kellex was a made-up name from Kellog. Kellex had their engineering and design offices on the 22nd and 23rd floors of the Woolworth Building. We went back into Army uniforms and then had trouble with the MP's because we were invariably in the wrong uniform of the day or work clothes which were not allowed on the streets of New York. Nigh after night the MP's would stop us as we changed trains in Penn Station. Again we would have them call the phone number and an Army officer would tell the MP's to hold us until he got there. After seeing the man numerous times in the uniform of different officer ranks, I finally became brave enough to ask him just who he was. He told me that he was not even in the Army. He was the night duty officer at the New York FBI office and they had a closet full of different officer uniforms for him to put on to get us released. My Army buddy, John Culley, and I were assigned to be in charge of the generator room for the pilot plant at Kellex. We worked rotating 12-hour shifts for 11 days and then had 4 days off. On each shift, we had one civilian employee with us. On January 10, 1945, John Culley and I were transferred to Oak Ridge and assigned to the Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corporation's K-25 plant then under construction. At the same time the K-25 power plant was also under construction. Both of us being electrical engineers, we tried to get an assignment to the power plant but the Army would not assign GI's to a utility. It took us a few weeks but eventually the Army relented and we were assigned to the power plant. At that time the K-25 power plant was the single largest electrical generating station in the world. It was operated by a team from the Hudson Avenue station of the Brooklyn Edison Company in New York City. The Hudson Avenue station was the largest electrical generating station in the NYC network. We burned around 1,000 tons of coal a day in 3 steam boilers and operated 14 turbine generators generating 60, 120 and 240 cycle current. Most of the 60 cycle power came from the TVA. Note: The following story was later added by Mr. Brenneman...
Rifle Project
When I arrived in Oak Ridge, Tennessee for the first time in April of
1944 and then again in January of 1945 we lived in Army Barracks All
GI‘s who were not married and living with their wives lived in the
Barracks. We were all assigned to work for civilian corporations, some
working rotating shifts and others strictly days.We did not perform any Military duties. At one time an Army Captain showed up and decided that he wanted to form a drill team to parade and show off in front of General Groves when he came to Oak Ridge. He assembled about 50 or 60 of us together one evening and presented his idea to us. He also issued each of us a brand new Springfield 30-06 rifle packed in cosmolene.(spelling). If you have ever tried to clean anything packed in cosmolene you know that it is almost an impossible task. This Captain ordered us to clean the rifles and have them ready for his inspection the following evening. You never saw such a mad bunch of GI’s. After he left, John Culley and I went to the GI motor pool where I had access to vehicles and obtained a big Army 6x6 truck. We loaded all the rifles into the truck and headed for the Conditioning Building. In that we each had “A” badges we could get into any building at any time. This building contained a huge conveyor system. As the portion of the conveyor system came around that had hooks we hung each rifle on a hook leather strap and all, .and started them through the conditioning process. This process consisted of steam cleaning then cleaning with perchlorethylene and trichlorethylene and finally uranium hexaflouride was used to etch the materials. All materials that went into the K-25 production process were first run through the Conditioning Building During the course of that evening the Army Captain stopped by the Barracks and he noticed that no one was cleaning rifles. He did not ask where the rifles were or make any comments. Later that evening Culley and I brought the rifles back to the Barracks spotlessly clean and loaded them into the rifle racks that the Captain had set up in the Barracks. The next night he came in and found all the rifles clean and of course no one told on us. This Captain left Oak Ridge shortly after this. We sure hoped that no one ever tried to shoot these rifles as the insides of the barrels were ruined by the uranium etching. We never knew what happened to the rifles as they soon disappeared. |
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Name:
Lyman C. Brenneman
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