Chelsea Barbee
4th Period
5/12/01
The Manhattan Project
"Desperate times call for desperate measures".
When the United States needed to
make the Japanese surrender during World War II only one thing could be done;
the
creation of the atomic bomb. It would be the most powerful bomb ever in
history. It
could even wipe out a whole city all at once. To create this bomb the
Manhattan Project
was developed. It called for scientist, government officials, engineers,
generals, and etc.
from all over the nation. They all worked together to make what would be
the most
destructive bomb in the world.
The rumor had begun in 1939 that Germany was developing the
atomic bomb.
The Manhattan Project was authorized by President Roosevelt and officially
began in
June of 1942. It was the United States attempt to develop atomic weapons
first. America
was also concerned that Japan might develop the bomb. General Leslie R.
Groves,
Deputy Chief of Construction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, directed this
top
secret project, which lasted from 1943 to 1946.
The Manhattan Project was made up of three different facilities.
They were the
Hanford site in Washington State, The Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, and
the Los
Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. At Hanford, large nuclear
reactors were
built to change uranium (U-238) into plutonium (PU-239). At Oak Ridge,
the desired
fuel uranium (U-235) was separated from the more abundant uranium (U-238).
Finally,
in Los Alamos the atomic bombs were designed and built. My interviewee
had the
experience of working at one of these sites.
Dorothy Tingen Fetner was born in 1914 in Creedmoor, North
Carolina. She had
five brothers and two sisters, all older than she was. In 1944 when
Dorothy was 30 years
old the government was recruiting workers to go to Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
This 59,000
acre site was once farmland and wilderness. There she would be a part of
the creation of
the most important weapon in nuclear war. When the government recruited Dorothy
she
was very eager to say yes. At this time, jobs were very scarce and the
pay was not very
good in Creedmoor. Not only did she desperately need a job but also
wanted to be a part
of something that would be so important. She said that most people were just
eager to
have any job at all. So she moved to Tennessee and worked with the
Manhattan project
for two years.
Mrs. Fetner
admired Einstein and his idea for the atomic bomb. But Einstein
never meant for his idea to turn out the way it did. In fact he said, “I
made one great
mistake in my life when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending
that
atom bombs be made.”
Life was very
simple for Dorothy during World War II. She would wake up at
eight in the morning and go to work until five. She was a secret records
clerk. She did
recordkeeping and handled paperwork. Since the facility was open 24 hours
a day there
were three different shifts. Dorothy shared her office with two other
women. One of her
jobs was to time (to the second) how long a detonation took. A security
guard escorted
her from her office to a vault-like room. He never left her side and then
escorted her back
Because everyone was expected to go directly to their work area and nowhere
else, she
did not see that much of the facility. One job she does remember (but
which wasn’t hers)
was a type of assembly line where women washed many mechanical parts used to
make
the bomb. The work that required heavy lifting and physical labor was
performed by
men.
The
government didn’t want anyone finding out anything about the atomic bombs.
The sites for the Manhattan Project were heavily guarded. Anyone working
there had to
have a badge and an identification card. Everyday when a person would
arrive to work,
there a lady would take their clothes and make them change into white pants and
a white
shirt. The employee would change back into their own clothes before
leaving. To visit
anyone at the facility, the person who was visiting had to go through many
procedures.
There would have to be a special background check on that person. One time when
Dorothy’s father came to visit he didn’t have that much trouble getting in to
go see her.
But when her father was leaving the guards kept asking him a lot of questions
and giving
him a really hard time. The guards searched him to make sure he didn’t
take out any
records or documents. If any person were ever to give out any information
about their job
it would be a federal offense. Most people thought that even talking
about the project
would be a betrayal of their country. At the beginning of the interview,
Mrs. Fetner
commented that she couldn't say very much about her work at Oak Ridge.
She felt that
even today, such information was still classified as top secret.
Many people working
with the Manhattan Project in Tennessee lived in barracks.
Barracks were small houses where soldiers had once lived. But the homes
were empty
since most of the soldiers went to go fight overseas. Dorothy first lived
in the barracks
and later moved into a “hutment”, which were small square buildings made out of
metal,
the walls bolted together. There were very little social activities
outside of work at Oak
Ridge. People just concentrated on doing their job. Dorothy
remembers that there was a
cafeteria on the site but that the food was not very good. She also
remembered that
cigarettes and other things were rationed during this time because of the war.
When questioned about her opinion on the United States developing
the atomic
bomb and dropping it on Japan, Dorothy Fetner replied that she completely
approved
because it definitely brought an end to World War II. She was convinced
that if our
country had not done this, that the Japanese would have been able to invade the
United
States.
The combined work at the Hanford Site, The Oak Ridge Reservation,
and Los
Alamos National Laboratory came together when the first plutonium device,
code-named
Trinity, was test exploded in New Mexico on July 16, 1945. The test took
place at an
airbase in Alamogordo. For the scientists involved, it was an exciting
but scary time.
They did not know exactly what would happen because an atomic bomb gets its
power
from a chain reaction. When would the chain reaction end? Would it
go on forever?
How big an area would it destroy? Scientists were really not even sure if
the explosion
would cause the atmosphere to catch on fire and then destroy our planet.
The general
public was not informed about these concerns because the project was still very
much
top-secret. There were rumors and talk among many people concerning what
the
government was up to.
Of course, these feared results did not come about.
However, there were some
scientists, military men, and leaders who felt that the United States should
not use this
powerful new weapon of mass destruction. The decision was made to proceed
.
Following the test explosion, the first uranium bomb called "Little
Boy" was dropped on
Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. It killed at least 70,000 people.
Three days later on
August 9th a plutonium bomb similar to the Trinity was dropped on Nagasaki,
which
killed at least 35,000 people. World War II then came to an end when
Japan surrendered
on August 14, 1945. The debate continues today about whether the
atomic bombing of
Japan was the right thing to do. The development of nuclear weapons
completely
changed warfare between countries and led to the fear that if not controlled,
our entire
world could be destroyed by these weapons.
While doing this interview I found it interesting that someone
related to me could
play a part that was so important during World War II. Dorothy Fetner was
the only
person I have ever heard of who worked on the Manhattan Project. Although
she is now
87 years old, she has a very clear memory of the time she spent there. To
me it was very
neat to get a personal account of such an important historical event instead of
just reading
about it. She told me things I would have never been able to find out on the
internet or in
text books. I am glad I had the opportunity to learn first hand about the
Manhattan
Project.