The Wives of Los Alamos

If you have enjoyed past posts about the Manhattan Project and Oak Ridge, or if you have enjoyed either of the Oak Ridge/Manhattan Project books I've reviewed, you will probably enjoy The Wives of Los Alamos by Tarashea Nesbit.

Los Alamos was one of the three principal sites of the Manhattan Project, the World War II effort to design and build the world's first atomic weapons. To review, Los Alamos was the site responsible for designing and building the weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, using fuels supplied by Oak Ridge and Hanford.

Although Ms Nesbit calls her book a novel, it's unlike any novel I have ever read. To me, it fell into a grey area between fiction and non-fiction. It reads more like an aggregated, collective memoir. She tells the stories of the wives who accompanied their scientist husbands to a remote mesa in New Mexico, the minutiae of living in a town under construction, war-time shortages, raising children, building community, being cut off from families and the rest of the world, and not knowing why they were there, except for "the war effort." Her voice is that of all the wives; "we wondered about..., we wore ...," etc. She tells of the aliases the families were given and the distracting answers they were given to answer questions that never should have been asked. She speaks of "the Director" and of "the General" without ever saying "Oppenheimer" or "Groves," but we know who she means and we share her secret. And at the end, as the scientists and their families deal with what they have created, say goodbye to colleagues and neighbors, and prepare to return to their universities or seek new jobs, we share some of their conflicted emotions about the experience.

When my wife and I first visited Los Alamos in the early 1970s, we had already lived in Oak Ridge for nearly four years and had heard many stories about life during the war years. Entering Los Alamos was almost like entering a slightly different Oak Ridge. The houses were of the same age, many of the same design. The greatest difference seemed to be that the deciduous trees of Oak Ridge had been replaced with pines. And the stories Nesbit tells are both the same and different from the Oak Ridge stories; it's like entering a slightly different Oak Ridge.

The Girls of Atomic City

I've written before about Oak Ridge and the Manhattan Project, the race with the Germans to build an atomic bomb during World War II. Much has been written about the Manhattan Project and the three sites (Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Los Alamos, New Mexico; and Hanford, Washington) that were created to carry out this important work. The latest focuses on the young women, many fresh out of high school, who were enlisted to fill critical jobs in Oak Ridge, jobs that could not be filled by men because they were off fighting a war.

The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan tells the oral histories of women who came to Oak Ridge in their teens to perform jobs that were held in tight secrecy. Interviewed when they were in their 80s and 90s, these women had had no inkling of what their jobs entailed until the news of the Hiroshima bomb dropping appeared in local newspapers. They knew only that the jobs were contributing to the war effort. Many came from distant places, not knowing what their destination was until their trains pulled into the station in Knoxville, Tennessee. And then they could not tell anxious parents back home anything about their new lives, only that they were well and contributing to winning the war. They came from farms and coal mining camps, small towns and big cities. They endured mud, shortages, and primitive living conditions. And they were surrounded by people their own age, with whom they socialized, eventually married, and created a town that exists today.

Because of the need for secrecy, cameras were contraband during the war, and workers were rigidly compartmentalized. Everyone twelve years old and older was required to wear a picture badge when on the reservation, including in the residential and business districts. Codes on badges told which buses people could board, which plant area they could enter, and to which floor or wing within a building they had access. Recognizing the need to document the whole project for history, the Manhattan Project employed a young photographer by the name of Ed Westcott, and gave him access to all areas. His photographs (some reproduced here) are the images we all now know of that time.

Most people working in Oak Ridge learned the nature of their jobs from news reports following the bombing of Hiroshima. Ms. Kiernan tells of excited housewives calling their husbands at work to tell them the news, only to be hung up on by husbands who feared their wives had just broken the ultimate rules of secrecy and had jeopardized their livelyhoods.

Terrible as these weapons were, most agree that their use hastened the end of the war and saved many lives. With the end of the war, the work in Oak Ridge was scaled back and the workforce shrank accordingly. As the GIs returned from the war, they were given jobs and replaced many of the women. Some moved away, but some stayed to eventually buy their homes from the government and create a stable community. Oak Ridge shrank from a wartime population of around 75,000 to fewer than 30, 000 people, a number that has remained fairly constant over the years.

Having lived in Oak Ridge for more than 30 years, I was well familiar with the overall outline of the story. It was easy to tell if Ms. Kiernan had done her homework. The answer is a resounding yes. Not only are the stories well researched, the writing is excellent, and these familiar stories have held my attention as if encountering the information for the first time. I recommend it.

One step closer

The Manhattan Project-era Army Guest House, also known as the Alexander Inn, came one step closer to being saved this week. The U.S. Department of Energy has made a half-million-dollar grant to a local historic preservation group in Oak Ridge to buy and stabilize the now-derelict structure. The grant will buy time from the wrecking ball to determine the ultimate future of the building, which housed some of the nation's top military and scientific minds during the war. Also receiving funds was the K-25 gaseous diffusion plant, which still will be demolished but will be represented by an interpretive center. Both structures are slated to be part of a proposed Manhattan Project National Park, pending legislation now working its way through Congress.

Y-12

The Y-12 Electromagnetic Separations Plant was one of three installations for the Manhattan Project sited in east Tennessee in 1943. Its mission was to enrich uranium in the fissionable isotope using large electromagnets to accelerate streams of uranium atoms, bending their paths in such a way as to allow atoms of slightly different weights to scatter such that they could be collected separately. (Yes, that is a gross simplification, but I'm an ecologist, not a physicist. For those with chemical backgrounds, they are actually large mass spectrometers.)

The machines that accomplished this separation were called calutrons, and were invented at the University of California by E.O. Lawrence, who received the Noble Prize in Physics in 1939. The chemical element 103 was named lawrencium in his honor, as well. Lawrence's calutrons at Y-12 were arranged into oval assemblages that were nicknamed racetracks, because of their shapes.

Because of the high demand for copper during the war, the electromagnets were instead wound with silver wire, borrowed from the U.S. Treasury. Readers may recall that in 1943 the U.S. was still on the silver standard and our currency was backed by silver reserves held by the treasury. A paper note was imprinted with the words "Silver Certificate," and a person could exchange one for the equivalent amount of silver on demand. So during WWII, our currency was backed by the calutrons at Y-12, at least in part. After the war the silver was reclaimed and returned to the treasury. Congress repealed the silver standard in 1963, and by 1968 currency could no longer be redeemed for silver.

Young women were trained to operate the calutron racetracks, but never told what their jobs actually were. They simply sat in front of panels of dials and controls and made adjustments to keep the readings within an allowable range. They were never allowed to look behind the curtain, and didn't learn what their job was about until after the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

 After the war all uranium enrichment was done by gaseous diffusion, at K-25 and its sister plants. Y-12 continued to operate with other defense missions. Now known as the Y-12 National Security Complex, it is operated by the U.S. Department of Energy through its National Nuclear Security Administration. You can learn more about Y-12 by visiting their web site here. Look at the articles written by Ray Smith, Y-12 historian. They're excellent.

All photographs used are U.S. Government photographs and are in the public domain.

The Oak Ridge Story

I'm currently re-reading a book I first read more than 40 years ago. The Oak Ridge Story, by George O. (Gus) Robinson, Jr., was first published in 1950. Robinson had been the Public Information Officer for the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge. It was he who had been tasked with writing the first news releases following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that introduced atomic energy to the world. Published just five years later, this telling communicates much of the newness of the technology. Written at the onset of the Atoms for Peace program, and long before Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, the tone sometimes tends toward awe, and Gee-Whiz. But it remains an important source, written by someone who was there throughout the war.

When we first went to Oak Ridge in 1968, The Oak Ridge Story was eagerly being read by all newcomers to the town. One could check out a copy from the public library. Soon the book was out of print and the library could no longer bear the constant loss of copies, so it was put on permanent reserve. One could read it in the library, but it no longer circulated. Fortunately, the book has been reprinted by the Oak Ridge Heritage and Preservation Association. It can be ordered on-line from The American Museum of Science and Energy. Go to their Gift Shop page and click on Science & History Books. They also offer a great selection of books on the Manhattan Project. And if you're ever near Oak Ridge, the museum is well worth a visit. During the summer, they also offer a limited tour of the nuclear facilities, including a visit to the historic Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

International Friendship Bell

In Oak Ridge, Tennessee's, A. K. Bissell Park there is a Japanese Pagoda-like structure containing a traditional Japanese bell. Nearly 5 feet in diameter and more than six feet tall, it is cast in solid bronze and weighs more than four tons. It is rung by an external striker made of wood, in the Japanese style, rather than the western-style clapper. This is how it came to be:

Oak Ridge is a child of World War II. Before the war, the area was sparsely-settled farm land and small supporting villages. Everyone had to move away when the army chose this spot for the principal site of the Manhattan Project, the race to beat the Germans in the development of an atomic weapon. It was here that the uranium that went into the bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, was produced. Here was the the pilot plant that led to construction of the plutonium reactors and processing facilities in Hanford, Washington. They produced the plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. No one would blame the Japanese people for hard feelings toward Oak Ridge.

In preparing to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of Oak Ridge, civic leaders were looking for a project that would provide a lasting legacy of the celebration. This project was initially suggested by a Japanese-American, Shigeko Uppuluri, whose husband worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It was cast by Soutetsu Iwasawa, a bellmaker in Japan. The $200,000 needed for the project came from donations from Oak Ridgers, as well as contributions from Japan, the U.S., and other countries.

The bell stands as a symbol of friendship between former enemies, and when rung proclaims that friendship to all within hearing distance.

Alphabet Houses

Selection of a principal location for the war-time Manhattan Project involved multiple criteria. The selected location had to have sufficient electrical power, it should be far enough inland to protect it from enemy attack, and it should be in a sparsely-populated region, both to avoid displacing large numbers of residents and to aid in maintaining secrecy. An area just northwest of Knoxville, Tennessee, met those criteria. It's now known as Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the Secret City.

Next came the building of the factories that would produce the materials for the world's first atomic weapon, and the creation of a town to house the workforce required. For security reasons, the town needed to be entirely self-contained, providing not only housing but all goods and services needed by the population. And since a large part of the population would be young, highly-educated engineers and scientists, and most would come from urban backgrounds, the housing needed to be comfortable, and recreational and intellectual opportunities had to be provided. And, oh, by the way, we need it yesterday. That seemingly-impossible job was given to the firm of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill.

The firm came up with a series of five basic house plans that could quickly be assembled on site. Designated types A, B, C, D, and F, the houses quickly became known as "alphabet houses." They were wood-frame construction sheathed in cement-asbestos, or cemesto, panels, each with a coal-fired furnace and a wood-burning fireplace. In all, some 3,000 cemesto houses were built, with one being completed every 30 minutes. The houses were expected to be needed up to seven years and no thought was given to making them last longer than that. But starting in 1955 the government began selling the houses to residents and speculators, and they continue to be occupied after what is now 68 years after they were built.

Type A house

All of the cemesto alphabet houses have been modified over the years, although the A-house above has had minimal changes made. It still shows the cemesto panels. A-houses are the smallest, only 768 sq. ft. (71 square meters), with two small bedrooms. The B-houses are similar, with 960 sq. ft. allowing for slightly larger bedrooms. The type, and thus the size, of a house was assigned according to family size, although the employee's position in the project also could lead to larger housing if the person were important enough.

Type C house

Most houses have been remodeled to the point where it's sometimes difficult to tell they started out as a cemesto, although the neighborhood is usually a sufficient tipoff. This C-house (1184 sq. ft.) has three bedrooms.

Type D house

This D-house (1584 sq. ft.) now looks to be a typical brick rancher. It also has 3 bedrooms, but somewhat larger ones than in a C-house. Most D-houses are D1s, that is, they have only one bathroom. Our son and his wife have a D2, which has a second bathroom off the master bedroom.

Their D2 is also the reverse floor plan of the brick D-house shown above, and has an added carport.

 

Type F house

The F-house is 1620 sq. ft., also with three bedrooms. Supposedly one had to be important to get an F-house, and there aren't nearly as many of them as there are D-houses.

So, what happened to the letter "E," you might ask. That letter was reserved for 4-unit apartment buildings that were located at the edges of residential neighborhoods. The one below is now operated by the hospital as a hospitality house.

Type E apartments

Construction workers were assigned to  one of 16,000 hutments (one-room boxes with 4 or more beds in them) or barracks; 13,000 dormitory rooms; or one of 5,000 trailers. I had two aunts who lived in trailers with their construction-worker husbands during construction of the Y-12 plant. One said her memories of Oak Ridge were of "being in mud up to your chin with dust blowing in your face."