THE MANHATTAN PROJECT

By

Gordon M. Smith

As most of you are undoubtedly aware, the Manhattan Project that I am referring to is not the mad trek from the suburbs into and out of the big city of New York every day, but the code name for the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.  Because of its relatively late start in the war effort, the Manhattan Engineer District, as it was officially known, was having difficulty in obtaining the technical manpower needed for the construction and operation of the project.  Consequently, the decision was made to recruit some of the needed technically trained personnel from the armed forces and assign them to the project. 

My story begins with my assignment by the army in 1944 to the 9812^th Technical Service Unit, or Special Engineering Detachment as it was known, which was stationed in Oak Ridge, Tennessee during World War II.  The 9812^th Special Engineering Detachment at Oak Ridge consisted of a peak roster of over 1200 enlisted men who had engineering training or technical experience, especially in the electrical or chemical field or both.  The Oak Ridge location consisted of three plants that needed the technical expertise that these men could supply.  Uranium, as I’m sure you all know, is the raw material used for the atomic bomb.  The fissionable component is the uranium 235 isotope that is present to the extent of about 0.7% of the naturally occurring material, the remainder being primarily the uranium 238 isotope.  Two of the plants were devoted to the separation of the U-235 isotope from the U-238 isotope, one by gaseous diffusion and the other by electro-magnetic separation.  The third plant was a pilot plant facility using a graphite moderated atomic reactor where plutonium, the other fissionable material for the atomic bomb, could be produced in sufficient quantity to develop the chemical processes to separate and isolate this material on a commercial scale from the remaining uranium and other fission products produced in the reactor.  The men in the 9812^th Special Engineering Detachment were assigned to the various plants wherever they were qualified and needed to work along side the civilians there.  I ended up at the electro-magnetic separation plant (operated by Tennessee Eastman Corporation) as a result of having worked in an electrical substation while attending college and having completed the Army ASTP Electrical Engineering curriculum although my college major was Chemical Engineering.  However, I don’t intend to rehash all the details that went into the making of such a device as that is another aspect of history that all of you have been exposed to many times over, I’m sure.  Instead, I want to share with you some of the anecdotal happenings during my time at Oak Ridge to give you a little insight into the “human side of the news” to quote one commentator. 

When we were assigned to Oak Ridge, it was under sealed orders and we were not told what we were going to be doing or what the Project was all about.  However, upon learning of the chemistry that was involved, it was not hard to deduce that uranium was the target of all the work and, from what little had been published about fission before the war, that some form of atomic energy was being developed.  As a sidelight, in the spring of 1942 when my chemistry professor returned from attending a seminar in Chicago, he made a comment that I never forgot.  In class one day, he said, “We are a lot closer to atomic power than most people realize.”  I can only assume that he had seen or learned of the initial “pile” experiments that were being performed under the stadium at Chicago University in 1942. 

Back to Oak Ridge.  When I was shipped to Oak Ridge along with 12 other men, the group leader was told to report to a certain address in Knoxville, Tennessee (knock and ask for Joe).  However, when we arrived at the railroad station there, we were met by an officer in uniform who told us to follow him.  He led us to a 6 by 6 army truck into which we all piled for the ride to the muddy roads of Oak Ridge that was just under development at the time.  The army barracks area was located in about the middle of town but south of the residential zone.  As I found out later, some of the GIs worked shift work at the plants, so there was no mess hall as is normally found in an army barracks area.  There was a cafeteria, however, and we were given a meal allowance with which to provide our own meals.  Being on a meal allowance, we were free to eat at any of the other cafeterias in town.  Initially there were no restaurants as such in Oak Ridge (or hotels either) except for one in the Guest House, which was a little expensive for a GI budget. 

A few days after we had arrived in Oak Ridge, several friends and I decided to eat in the cafeteria in the Town Square.  As we walked by some tables to get to the end of the cafeteria line, we saw an army buddy who had shipped out of our previous location about three months before we did.  We were surprised to see him, but the biggest surprise of all was the fact that he was wearing civilian clothes!  When we started to exclaim and ask for explanations, he gave us the “high-sign” and a “SHH!”  In privacy later on, we found out that he had been put into counter intelligence work after his arrival in Oak Ridge.  Part of his job was to be alert to any espionage or sabotage that might be going on among any of the workers in the plant.  As he was married, he had been provided with a house where he and his wife lived as civilians.  He was given a regular paycheck and cashed it as any other civilian employee did; the catch was he had to return the money to the authorities the next day in return for his regular army pay. 

During two weeks of orientation following my arrival at Oak Ridge, I was required to take some courses in basic electrical knowledge along with a number of new civilian employees.  Upon talking with the instructor a few days after the start of the course, we found out that I had taken more college electrical courses than he had, as he had been an English major.  After that, I helped him prepare electrical diagrams that he needed for the course and spent very little time in the classroom. 

Upon completion of the orientation course, I was assigned as an operator of two motor-generator sets in one of the electro-magnetic separation buildings.  When I first started to work there, we GIs were supposed to punch a time clock when we entered and left the plant just as the civilians did.  However, there was so much flak about that ridiculous procedure that it was soon dropped and the enlisted men were no longer required to punch the time clocks. Because of the tremendous amount of current required by the magnets to make the isotope separation and the shortage of copper at the time, the main bus bars from the motor-generator sets to the magnetic coils were made of solid silver which had been “borrowed” from Fort Knox.  Silver was used for the bus bars, which had an approximate 1” by 4” cross-section, because of its electrical conductivity, which is even greater than that of copper.  Needless to say, having a high current at a medium voltage flowing through the bus bars was a good deterrent to keep anyone from trying to make off with any of the silver. 

I worked rotating shifts and had to be on duty at the machines for an entire eight-hour shift except when a relief man took over for two 10-minute breaks during the shift.  After about a month of the lonely tour of duty at the motor-generator sets, I decided that I would prefer to work in the chemical section of the plant since the chemical field was my career selection and I requested a change of assignment.  My replacement was an older civilian whom I had to train in the operation of the motor-generator sets for about a week before I could report for my new job. During the time we were together, he tried to pump me to find out what was going on at Oak Ridge with such comments as, “I wonder what they’re doing here; you see trainloads of material coming in and nothing ever going out.” – or “Whatever happened to that guy Lawrence with that magnetic separator that he invented?”  Of course, Lawrence had been around but to all of his questions I just shrugged my shoulders and said that I didn’t know.  Who knows, he might have been from counterintelligence and was just trying to find out what I knew about what was going on and if I was disgruntled enough to blab about what I did know.  I really can’t quite imagine the ordinary workman there being knowledgeable of Dr. Ernest Lawrence’s work. 

As you can well imagine, security at Oak Ridge was of prime importance during those wartime years.  A perimeter fence surrounded the entire Oak Ridge area including the town.  A pass was required to get through the perimeter gate and gain entrance into the town.  Each of the plant sites was surrounded by an additional fence and required a badge from the operating contractor to gain entrance to the plant.  When you went through the plant entrance, you exchanged your general badge for another one that indicated which areas inside the plant you were authorized to enter.  Once inside the plant, there were more fences, which enclosed specific areas, and you were allowed entrance only to those that pertained to your job and which were indicated by various letters on your badge.  To go to the main plant cafeteria you had to leave your work area and consequently needed your badge with the internally designed access areas to get back to your workstation.  On one occasion, one of my hut-mates forgot to take his badge with him when he went to the plant cafeteria with several other fellows.  So on the return trip to the work area he walked between his buddies and flashed a matchbook while the others showed their proper badges.  Fortunately the guard on duty either didn’t see it or knew him and ignored it and he was able to get back to his work location. 

Those of us who worked shift work were housed in four man huts in a semi-wooded area away from the main barracks so that we would be able to sleep during the day.  One day, while on the midnight shift, my sleep was disrupted by a runner from the first sergeant’s office who woke me and told me to report to the first sergeant right away.  When I got to his office I was told to report to a certain place at a certain time that evening.  Although I had no idea what it was all about, when you’re in the army, you do as you are told.  Upon reporting as directed, I was interviewed by an officer, although I still wasn’t told what it was all about.  Several days later I was again called down to the first sergeant’s office.  This time he asked me if I had gone for an OCS interview a few days ago.  When I told him that I had been interviewed by an officer several days earlier but that I didn’t know what it was all about, he told me that I had taken an OCS interview that was supposed to be for the other Gordon Smith who was in our detachment! 

After we had been in Oak Ridge for a few months, my hut-mates and I discovered that we were eligible for food rationing stamps because we were on a per diem basis for meals.  So we all applied for and received our proper share of food rationing stamps.  Using practically all of our meat ration stamps, we each bought a nice T-bone steak and brought them back to the hut.  One of the fellows had obtained a “surplus” heater that was used on the diffusion vacuum pumps at the magnetic separations plant and it made a great hot plate for preparing the steaks.  Those steaks surely were a welcome change from the usual cereal-filled meat dishes available at the cafeterias.  Other ration stamps, such as those for sugar etc., we gave to our civilian friends. 

While stationed at Oak Ridge, I met up with a fellow who had waited on tables in the same dormitory dining room where I did when we were in college.  At that time he was working as a civilian in one of the laboratories associated with the test reactor.  After working there for several months, the draft board caught up with him and he was drafted.  About eight weeks later, he showed up again, only this time in GI uniform.  He told me that the army had sent him to a camp for basic training and then shipped him right back to Oak Ridge as soon as his basic training was over.  Now he was back doing the same job that he had done before as a civilian except that he was now getting a private’s pay instead of a civilian’s wages. 

As part of the security system for Oak Ridge, once you had been assigned there by the army, you were very unlikely to be sent overseas where the risk of capture by the enemy might present a possible breach in security.  One of my original hut-mates, after spending several months in Oak Ridge, decided that he wasn’t doing enough for the war effort and wanted to get into some of the action overseas.  His request for a transfer out of the Special Engineering Detachment was granted after a few months, but he was never sent overseas and spent the rest of the war in the medics at Ft. Lewis in Washington State. 

The word “uranium” was just not in the vocabulary at Oak Ridge and anyone trying to find out anything about it was immediately suspect.  Various code names were used for that material whenever it was mentioned or reference was made to it.  There must have been three or four euphemisms for the metal and its compounds, but I don’t remember them anymore except for the word “tubealloy”. 

Now for one of my favorite stories about Oak Ridge.  Following my transfer to the chemical section at the plant where I worked, I became a shift supervisor in one of the chemical control laboratories with six to eight female technicians working for me.  After the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the news of what was being done at Oak Ridge was made public knowledge.  Following the announcement, the Knoxville Journal newspaper came out the next day with big headlines about the atomic bomb and had a big story with pictures on Oak Ridge and what was being done there.  When I reported for duty on my shift that day, the girls were all twittering about the newspaper stories of Oak Ridge in the Knoxville Journal.  However, some of them still did not grasp the impact of the work that was done in Oak Ridge and of which they had been a part.  One of the girls who worked for me asked in all sincerity and innocence, “Do you think it made the newspaper headlines anywhere else?”