Nuclear Museum Logo
Nuclear Museum Logo

National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Harry Petcher

Head of Box Lunch DepartmentHanford, WA

Manhattan Project Veteran
Hanford Listen to Harry Petcher’s Oral History on Voices of the Manhattan Project

Harry Petcher's flat feet meant he couldn't be drafted, but still had an obligation to work for the war effort. After working as a Signal Corps clerk in Chicago, Petcher moved to Hanford with his wife, where they found jobs in the mess hall. Petcher soon became head of Hanford's massive box lunch department, where he oversaw tens of thousands of box lunches being made every day. In twenty months at Hanford, the staff served 3,088,480 box lunches.

Related Profiles

Ruth K. (McNunis) Bansch

Chicago, IL

Ruth K. (McNunis) Bansch was a laboratory technician in the Health Division at the University of Chicago Met Lab.

Benjamin J. Johnson

Los Alamos, NM

L. G. Chelius

Oak Ridge, TN

L. G. Chelius worked for the Tennessee Eastman Corporation at the Y-12 Plant.

Alfred Pfanstiehl

Chicago, IL

Alfred Pfanstiehl was a junior physicist at the Chicago Met Lab during the Manhattan Project. Pfanstiehl was a signatory of the Szilard Petition, an attempt to avert military use of the atomic bomb against Japan.