Safety

Thomas O. Jones volunteered to join the Army before the start of WWII. As the war began to unfold in Europe, Jones was placed in a sub-organization of the Army called the Counterintelligence Corps. Eventually, his work in the Counterintelligence Corps led him to being involved with the Manhattan Project. Jones oversaw many of the […]

  Well I was very young at the time. I went down there in 1943, down to Oak Ridge, TN.   They were interviewing at Princeton where I was going to school. They guys said that they had a very important war project going on down there. And I said, “Oh what’s it all about?”  […]

Ed Doty worked as a technician with the Army’s Special Engineer Detachment (SED) in Los Alamos for the Manhattan Project. He recounts what life was like working on the secret site.

Robert Furman: Robert Furman. F-U-R-M-A-N. I was an assistant to General Groves in the Manhattan District, in his Twenty-First Street offices here in Northwest. And I joined him in late autumn of ‘43 and left him right after the war—right after the end of the war. Cindy Kelly: Can we—just to—no one’s going to hear […]

Cindy Kelly: Let’s start by having you tell us your name and spelling it. Irene LaViolette: I’m Irene LaViolette. Kelly: And how do you spell that? Can you spell your name? LaViolette: I-R-E-N-E; V middle initial, LaViolette, L-A-V-I-O-L-E-T-T-E.  Kelly: Great. Today’s date is February 13, 2013. My name is Cindy Kelly and we’re here at […]

Ron Elmlinger: Well my name is Ron Elmlinger. E-L-M-L-I-N-G-E-R. And we are in Grand Junction, Colorado. Today is June 28, 2013 and I am here with J. P. Moore. Mr. Moore, would you please say and spell your full name? J. P. Moore: James Phillip Moore, Junior. Elmlinger: And that is M-O-O-R-E, I am sure. […]

Cindy Kelly: I am Cindy Kelly, and this is May 9, 2013 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We’re interviewing Lawrence Bartell. Dr. Bartell, can you please say your name and spell it? Lawrence Bartell: My name is Lawrence Sims Bartell, I am the son of Lawrence Sims Bartell, but I’m not “junior” or “the second” or […]

Paul Williams: How did you come to be posted on Tinian? What were you doing when the war broke out? Harry Andritsis: Well, let’s see. They shipped me to Wendover, Utah. I had my secret training there but I didn’t know what it was about or anything until I got to Tinian. Williams: When you […]

Cindy Kelly: I am Cindy Kelly and I am interviewing here Dimas Chavez. My first question to him is, please tell us your name and how to spell it. Dimas Chavez: Dimas, D-I-M-A-S Chavez, C-H-A-V-E-Z. I was born in the central part in New Mexico, a small little ranching, farming, Mexican-American community by the name […]

[Interviewed by S. L. Sanger, from Working on the Bomb: An Oral History of WWII Hanford, Portland State University, 1995] I came to Hanford in March, 1944, as Du Pont’s medical director. When we arrived, we stayed in a hotel, and felt sand in our teeth, sand on the bed. Richland had 200-300 people and […]