Manhattan Project Voices

Alsos Mission (Europe) A little-known operation of the Manhattan Engineering District took place behind enemy lines in occupied Europe. Code-named the "Alsos" Mission,...	Ames, IA Several sites in Iowa played an important role during and after the Manhattan Project, including the Ames Laboratory at the Iowa State University...
B Reactor The B Reactor at Hanford was built and operated by DuPont and was the world's first production-scale nuclear reactor. B Reactor was the first of...	Britain Often overlooked, British physicists were the first to realize the feasibility of an atomic bomb and their urgings were vital to the development and...
California Institute of Technology Before the war, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) was a leading university in the fields of particle and nuclear physics. It was...	Cambridge, MA Harvard University Harvard became an important center for nuclear physics research during the early twentieth century. After Ernest O. Lawrence...
Canada Often overlooked, Canada played an important role in the Manhattan Project, especially during the early stages of research and development. Canada...	Chicago Met Lab One of the most important branches of the Manhattan Project was the Metallurgical Laboratory (Met Lab) in Chicago. Using the name "Metallurgical...
Columbia University Important Manhattan Project research was conducted at Columbia University’s Pupin Hall (right) and Schermerhorn Hall. World-class physicists,...	Cuba After the activation of the 509th Composite Group in December 1944, some members of the group (including members of the 393rd Bombardment Squadron,...
Dayton, OH Dayton, Ohio was another site of the secret Manhattan Project work. In July 1943, Oppenheimer assigned Charles A. Thomas the task of separating...	Decatur, IL The Houdaille-Hershey Plant was a secret Manhattan Project site located in Decatur, Illinois that was responsible for plating the interior of pipes...
France An Introduction to French Nuclear History France was the premier place for research into radioactivity decades before the development of the bomb....	Golden, CO This site "manufactured ceramic insulators in the 1940s and processed uranium fuel in the 1960s.
Grand Junction, CO From 1943 until 1945, Grand Junction, Colorado was the center of the Manhattan Project’s secret effort to mine and refine uranium ore from...	Gun Site The Gun Site (TA-8-1) was where Manhattan Project scientists and engineers developed and tested the gun-type weapon design. The design for the “...
Hanford, WA Hanford, Washington, on the beautiful Columbia River, was the site selected for the full-scale plutonium production plant, the B Reactor. Today a...	Idaho Falls, ID Throughout its history, the U.S. nuclear laboratory at Idaho Falls (presently known as the Idaho National Laboratory or “INL”) has been home to 52...
Jackson Square Jackson Square was the heart of Oak Ridge’s business district. Originally Town Center No. 1, the name Jackson Square was adopted in February 1945 as...	Japan Japan was one of the Axis powers in World War II. Its attack on Pearl Harbor, HI, on December 7, 1941 brought the US formally into the war. Japan...
Jersey City, NJ Jersey City was home to the headquarters of the M. W. Kellogg Company, which specialized in chemical engineering projects. In 1942, the S-1 Committee...	K-25 Plant The K-25 Plant in Oak Ridge used the gaseous diffusion process to enrich uranium. Gaseous Diffusion Process The K-25 plant was an enormously...
Los Alamos Ranch School In 1918, entrepreneur Ashley Pond began an "outdoor school" at Los Alamos to provide boys a chance to gain health, strength and self-confidence. The...	Los Alamos, NM Los Alamos, New Mexico, was the site of Project Y, or the top-secret atomic weapons laboratory directed by J. Robert Oppenheimer. The site was so...
Manhattan, NY A surprising number of New York City offices, laboratories, and warehouses were involved in the top-secret project. While these New York City sites...	Nash Garage Building Located at 3280 Broadway, the Nash Garage Building was originally an automobile dealership which was purchased by Columbia University and converted...
Oak Ridge, TN In 1942, General Leslie Groves approved Oak Ridge, Tennessee, as the site for the pilot plutonium plant and the uranium enrichment plant. Manhattan...	Philadelphia, PA Philip Abelson conducted research on the liquid thermal diffusion method of isotope separation at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. This process was...
Princeton University Princeton University was a hotbed for nuclear physics research during the early twentieth century. Much of the research conducted at Princeton...	Purdue University The Purdue University Physics Department operated a cyclotron during the early part of the war, conducting important nuclear research. Many of the...
S-50 Plant With both the K-25 and Y-12 plants suffering setbacks in the spring of 1944, Oppenheimer urged Groves to approve the construction of a thermal...	Santa Fe, NM Santa Fe was the first stop for many scientists, engineers, Women's Army Corps, military police and all others assigned to work on the top-secret...
St. John, VI Though not a Manhattan Project location, the island of St. John in the US Virgin Islands played an important role in the life of J. Robert...	T-Plant In early 1944, DuPont, the operating contractor at Hanford, foresaw the need for four chemical separation facilities. These facilities, designated...
Tinian Island Tinian Island was the launching point for the atomic bomb attacks against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. One of three islands in the Northern...	Trinity Site The birth of nuclear weapons occurred on July 16, 1945 at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range in New Mexico, 230 miles south of Los Alamos....
University of California-Berkeley The "Rad Lab" was the short name for the Radiological Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. Its director was Nobel laureate Ernest O...	University of Rochester Small experiments studying the effects of radioactive isotopes, including plutonium, uranium, and polonium, on humans were conducted in the Manhattan...
V-Site Located in a bucolic setting surrounded by tall pines, these humble wooden and asbestos-shingled buildings were where the world's first atomic device...	Washington, DC In a tiny, two-room office located on the fifth floor of the New War Building, General Leslie R. Groves and a handful of staff members oversaw the...
Wendover Air Field, UT Wendover Air Field was chosen as the rear training base for the 509th Composite Group because of its isolation. It is located in the salt flats...	Wilmington, DE Wilmington, Delaware is the headquarters of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, an American chemical production company that played a significant...
X-10 Plant 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...	Y-12 Plant The Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge used the electromagnetic separation method, developed by Ernest Lawrence at University of California-Berkeley, to...

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