Safety

Ralph Gates is a chemical and electrical engineer who worked on the Manhattan Project as a part of the Special Engineer Detachment. His primary job was casting shape charges for the plutonium bombs.

Albert Bartlett: I started school in a little college in Ohio and then I dropped out for a while. Then I applied to transfer to Colgate. I was working on steamboats on the Great Lakes, and I was accepted. A steamboat was coming in to Cleveland, and I just told them I was leaving and […]

Albert Bartlett worked with mass spectrometers at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project. He was part of the group that photographed the Operations Crossroads nuclear tests in the Bikini Atoll after the war.

Cindy Kelly: I’m Cindy Kelly, Atomic Heritage Foundation, and it’s Friday, May 15, 2015, and I’m in Middlebury, Vermont, with Irwin P. Sharpe. And, my first question for him is to tell us your name and spell it. Irwin Sharpe: Oh, I know that. Okay. It’s Irwin, I-r-w-i-n, initial P, Sharpe, S-h-a-r-p-e. Kelly:  Terrific. Very […]

Murray Peshkin:  Well, how did I get involved in the Manhattan Project? I was an undergraduate student at Cornell University. A group of about ten, who were studying physics. It was clear that we could not be kept out of the Army very long. They were looking for programs in which we could serve usefully. […]

Murray Peshkin is a Manhattan Project veteran and a physicist. He was recruited by the Army to assist the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos when he was an undergraduate student studying physics at Cornell.

Mary Kalbert: My name is Mary Kalbert and I am in Friday Harbor, Washington, interviewing Gordon Steele on June 16, 2014 for the Atomic Heritage Foundation Manhattan Voices Project. Gordon? Gordon Steele: My name is Gordon, and you want me to spell my name? Kalbert: Please spell your name for me. Steele: Gordon. G-O-R-D-O-N. Steele. […]

Cindy Kelly: I’m Cindy Kelly. It is January 27, 2015. I am in Santa Fe with Richard Yalman, and the first question I have for you is to say your name and spell it. Richard Yalman: My name is Richard George Yalman, that’s Y-A-L-M-A-N. Kelly: Perfect. Very good. Richard has a very interesting story to […]

After receiving his bachelor’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from New York University, Hal Behl registered with the National Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel and was drafted into the Army. Although he was first placed in an infantry training unit, he was ultimately assigned to the Army Special Engineering Detachment and stationed at Oak Ridge. […]

Marge Shipley: As for housing, men would come too, because they would feel that they would get sent for their wives. Shirely Tawse: What would you do then, take it up with the Tennessee Eastman? Shipley: I would take it up with Eastman and do what I could. I’d quiet them down if I could. […]