X-10

[Interviewed by Cynthia Kelly and Tom Zannes.] Tell us your name. Louis Turner: My name is Louis Turner.  L-O-U-I-S T-U-R-N-E-R. I’m a metallurgical engineer. Graduated in 1941 from the Colorado School of Mines. I was working in Denver Ordnance Plant when I was asked if I would go to Chicago by DuPont. They wouldn’t tell […]

S. L. Sanger: This is Hefner on June 11, 1986, interviewed at his residence in Richland. Jack Hefner: The plant at Oak Ridge was operating to make enough samples of plutonium, so they could learn how to separate here at Hanford. Very few people said a great deal about that and knew much about it. […]

[Interviewed by Cindy Kelly and Tom Zannes.] Tell us your name. Harry Kamack: I’m Harry Kamack. K-A-M-A-C-K.   Tell us where you’re from. Kamack: Well, I was born and raised in Connecticut, and when I was in high school my father was transferred to Atlanta. So I went to Georgia Tech, got a degree in […]

Alexandra Levy: All right, we are here on December 28, 2012 with Max Gittler. Please say your name and spell it. Max Gittler: Max Gittler, M-a-x G-i-t-t-l-e-r. Levy: Where are you from? Gittler: New York, New York City, the Bronx. Levy: So how did you become involved in the Manhattan Project? Gittler: I was going to […]

The X-10 Graphite Reactor was the first reactor built after the successful experimental “Chicago Pile I” at the University of Chicago.  On December 2, 1942, using a lattice of graphite blocks and uranium rods, Enrico Fermi proved that a nuclear chain reaction could be controlled. Scientists knew that it would only be a matter of […]

In 1942, General Leslie Groves approved Oak Ridge, Tennessee, as the site for the pilot plutonium plant and the uranium enrichment plant. Manhattan Project engineers had to quickly build a town to accommodate 30,000 workers–as well as build the enormously complex plants. “Site X” By the time President Roosevelt authorized the Manhattan Project on December […]