Nuclear Museum Logo
Nuclear Museum Logo

National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Chemist Orville Hill joined the Met Lab at the University of Chicago in May of 1942, three months after it was created. After a stint at Oak Ridge, he went to Hanford in 1944. At Hanford, he worked to improve the plutonium separation process. After the war, he worked at Los Alamos and was tasked with studying bomb debris from the Bikini atomic bomb tests. Eventually, he returned to Hanford looking for a better way to separate plutonium from irradiated uranium. 

He later recalled the excitement and pressure of the Manhattan Project: “We were on the frontiers. We were doing things that I hadn’t dreamed of doing even a year before.”

Related Profiles

Robert E. Benbrook

Tinian Island

Robert E. Benbrook served in the 393rd Bombardment Squadron. 

David Fernholz

Los Alamos, NM

C.J. Shortess

Hanford, WA

Richard C. Ungemach

Los Alamos, NM

Richard Ungemach served in the army at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project.