Hanford

[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 […]

[Interviewed by Cynthia Kelly, Tom Zannes, and Thomas E. Marceau.] Russell Jim: My name is Russell Jim, R-U-S-S-E-L-L, J-I-M. Can you tell us what the land at Hanford has meant to the Yakama people? Jim: Most definitely. The Hanford area was our wintering ground, the Palm Springs of the area. And the winters were milder […]

[Interviewed by Cynthia Kelly and Tom Zannes.] K.W. Greager: Name is K.W. Greager, I go by Wally. Greager is spelled G-R-E-A-G-E-R, slightly different than the earlier Greager. Tell us about when you started with Hanford. Greager: I started working at Hanford after college in late 1951 on a rotational training program. I spent four years […]

[Interviewed by Cynthia Kelly and Tom Zannes.] Hank Kosmata: My name is Hank Kosmata, K-O-S-M-A-T-A. I was a chemical engineer student at the University of Utah. In our senior year, at that time the American Society of Chemical Engineers had what they called a “senior problem” that they gave to all the chemical engineering students […]

I arrived in Pasco on the train around 1:30 in the morning, May 1, 1943. The wind was blowing like hell, and if a train had been going back East I would have been on it. I went to Hanford the next day, a Sunday, and nothing was there. No barracks or anything else. I […]

[Interviewed by Robert W. Mull, from S.L. Sanger’s Working on the Bomb: An Oral History of WWII Hanford, Portland State University, 1995] The sight of military vehicles cruising through the valley started the talk. Upriver, a large parcel of land had been acquired for an artillery range and down at Pasco there was a Naval Air […]

[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 […]

[Interviewed by Cindy Kelly and Tom Zannes.] Tell us your name. John Tepe: I’m John Tepe, T-E-P-E. Tell us about where you grew up and went to school. Tepe: Well, I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, which was my family hometown. My family had been there since 1794, and I was the first to leave. […]

[Interviewed by Cindy Kelly and Tom Zannes.] Tell us your name. Russell Stanton: I’m Russell C. Stanton. R-U-S-S-E-L-L, C. for Crom, S-T-A-N-T-O-N.  Tell us about yourself. Stanton: Well, I was born in Elephant Butte, New Mexico. My father was an engineer with the Bureau of Reclamation and they built a dam there. I was born […]

[Interviewed by Cindy Kelly and Tom Zannes.] Tell us your name. Hultgren: Roger A. Hultgren, R-O-G-E-R, A was Aaron, double A-R-O-N, and Hultgren, H-U-L-T-G-R-E-N. How did you get to be part of the Manhattan Project?  Hultgren: Well, there’s many avenues. I was born in 1920 and my mother went to the University of Minnesota. She […]