Transcription
INTRODUCTION
[Prologue]
Physicists all over the world were excited by the announcement in the first week in January 1939 by German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman in Berlin that the nucleus of the uranium atom when bombarded with neutrons produced barium. Otto Frisch and Lise Meitner later deduced that the barium was the result of the splitting or fissioning of the uranium nucleus. The binding energy of the nucleus so released is tremendous, ten million times larger than the energy released by chemical reactions. (Logan, p. 264) The German work was quickly confirmed by four universities in this country and by others around the world (Smyth, p.25). The possible military applications of "atomic power" were soon being discussed in every country, and in the U.S. studies of the problems and possible approaches were undertaken with government support in 1940. These studies produced promising results and culminated in December 1941 with the decision by our government to undertake an "all-out" effort to develop the bomb (Smyth, p.78).
During the following year the Manhattan Engineering District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was organized to direct the work, and two routes to producing the bomb was undertaken -- the uranium route (Y-12 & K-25) and the plutonium route (X-10 and Hanford). Neither approach had ever been even researched before; both were full of tremendous uncertainties, each offered some possibility of success. It was felt certain the Germans were working on one or both approaches, and may have had a head start. We had to learn whether a militarily useful application was possible, and if it was, we needed to learn how.
It was soon discovered that the fission observed in uranium was occurring primarily in uranium atoms of the light isotope, the form of the uranium atom in nature that has an atomic weight of 235 rather than 238. Unfortunately, only 7 atoms out of every 1000 in nature are this U-235 form (0.7115%) and they behave identically in chemical reactions so separation can only be effected by physical means -- taking advantage of the very small difference in mass or in the average properties of molecules, like kinetic various universities studying possible approaches for separating the uranium isotopes (gas centrifuge, gaseous diffusion, thermal diffusion, photochemical, electromagnetic), the choice was narrowed in late 1942 to two methods, the electromagnetic process and the gaseous diffusion process. Even by then, no one had succeeded in separating the uranium isotopes in any but minute quantities.
Y-12 is the World War II (WWII) code name given to the large plant built in 1942-1943 in the Bear Creek valley of Anderson County, TN to exploit the electromagnetic method developed by Dr. Ernest O. Lawrence and his colleagues at the University of California. It was the first of the four wartime plants built on a 60,000-acre site now known as Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and then known as the "Clinton Engineer Works" after the nearest city. The first of many Manhattan Project sites built over the U.S., Y-12 was then considered one of the most urgent by virtue of its being considered the fastest and surest of the gambles in the race with Germany to built and atomic bomb.
THE FIRST ERA - 1942 TO 1947. (5 YEARS)
MISSION: SEPARATING THE ISOTOPES OF URANIUM TO WIN WWII.
The Y-12 Plant was first conceived in the fall of 1942 by engineers of the Manhattan Engineering District (MED) of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The plant was designed and built by stone and Webster Construction Co. of Boston, MA with a top wartime priority at a cost of about $427 million. Even before each building was completely finished, the operating contractor, Tennessee Eastman Company of Kingsport, TN, moved its people in to start operations. The first building to begin operations at Y-12 was the calutron pilot plant/training building (9731) in the fall of 1943.
Despite formidable technical problems in both design and operations, this first-of-its-kind electromagnetic isotope separation (Calutron) plant, employing over 22,000 people at its peak, succeeded in its mission of furnishing in a little over two years the uranium fuel (highly-enriched in the light U-235 isotope) for the Hiroshima nuclear weapon that played a vital role in stopping the killing of the most destructive war in history. Within another year the gaseous diffusion plant at K-25 -- the Manhattan Project's back-up gamble for enriching uranium -- also had been proven to be a workable process, and being a continuous rather than a batch process it was much less costly. Y-12 was therefore shut down in December 1946 and employment was cut drastically.
THE SECOND ERA - 1947 to 1992. (45 YEARS)
MISSION -- MANUFACTURING NUCLEAR WEAPONS COMPONENTS DURING THE COLD WAR (45 YEARS)
After the close of WWII, Y-12 was assigned a new mission by the AEC, that of becoming a vital part of the growing Nuclear Weapons Complex (NCW). Y-12 was to be one of eventually twelve production facilities throughout the U.S. each with a unique role under the the leadership of the AEC's Albuquerque Operations Office and Oak Ridge Operations Office. Y-12's mission evolved into that of producing some of the key components of nuclear weapons and test devices needed for the expanding nuclear weapons stockpile, and for the safekeeping of our nation's highly enriched uranium stockpile. Many supporting tasks were given Y-12, notably the production in the 1950s and 1960s of the enriched lithium urgently needed for the thermonuclear program. Others are noted in this Chronology. Y-12 succeeded in carrying out her challenging missions, responding to tight production schedules, and developing and adapting beyond the state-of-the art technologies demanded by fast changing, new weapons designs over a period of almost half a century.
THE THIRD ERA -- STARTING 1992
With the collapse of the Communism and the end of the Cold War, President Bush in 1991 announced that the U.S. would stop all underground testing of nuclear weapons, would stop the design of any new nuclear weapons, and would begin cutting the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile from over 30,000 to an announced eventual target of around 3,000. The year 1992 saw a new era being at Y-12, characterized by major cut-backs in weapons component production work, rearranging work areas to cut down the number of buildings in operation to reduce operating costs, and an emphasis on transferring Y-12's unique manufacturing technology to American industry where security classification would permit. On-going missions include: storage of the nation's stockpile of weapons/components each year to study aging and other effects, production of the small number of nuclear weapons parts and assemblies needed to replace units taken from the stockpile; decontamination and decommissioning of unused buildings, and major efforts in environmental and waste management.
RATIONAL AND STRUCTURE OF THIS CHRONOLOGY
A full history or even a more complete chronology of Y-12 than this present one must be founded on a detailed review of the classified plant quarterly or monthly progress reports so as to more assuredly document all the important programs taken on by Y-12 together and their significance. This present work can make no pretense of being complete since no classified reports or archives have been accessed in its preparation -- only unclassified publications, books, and the participant's memories. The work first began many years ago as a detailed outline of Y-12's history prepared by Wilcox, but this has now been much added to and enriched with the addition of many other facts and "stories" that came out of several get-togethers with other Y-12 alumni and friends of Y-12 -- the stimulus and facilities for which was provided my Mick Wiest of Y-12 in the early months of 1997 in the connection with a study he was leading on historic preservation of Y-12 buildings.
What this chronology has tried to do is to put forth in the first section a Chronology of Noteworthy Events, a year by year listing of some of the noteworthy events in Y-12's history. These were generated from two kinds of sources, [1] from open literature books or articles telling about the WWII and the early years, and [2] from individuals who worked at Y-12 and who knew of these events first-hand. Their contributions to this history are acknowledged with the most sincere thanks, but what flaws there are in the reporting of their recollections and in omissions from the record are mine, not theirs.
In addition to the noteworthy events at Y-12, some contemporary events happening elsewhere are interspersed that may be of interest to the reader in either understanding what took place at Y-12 or to help understand the context in which the Y-12 event occurred. Such events happening elsewhere at the times shows are covered with this type of gray shading. Another type of entry are anecdotal reports given by participants in the events that the author felt would be of interest to readers, giving life to the events. Such anecdotal stories are italicized.
References are given where possible to sources and to individuals who contributed the information in order to assist anyone who might wish to carry this work farther. In some cases the dates remembered were "as best I recall", and the have not been checked against classified records for accuracy.
Following the Chronology of Noteworthy Events, there is a listing of Noteworthy Contributions of Y-12. The list of possible candidate topics was discussed in on of the group discussion sessions of the participants and this present list was the result. A number of others could be added, and the choices are certainly debatable. This is offered as the beginning of such a list, not as a final statement. And, most importantly, these are really subordinate in significance to Y-12's major contribution over these years, namely its truly remarkable Nuclear Weapons Complex mission success, its success as the "Can Do" plant, meeting very difficult schedule and quality requirements again and again over the half-century starting in 1944.
It is the hope of the compiler that this document will: [1] help preserve some of the history of the vital role Y-12 served in World War II and in the decades that followed -- much of which history does not appear in the books about the period published thus far. It also is his hope that it will: [2] be of help to those someday who have the opportunity to work through the abundant classified literature archived at Y-12 to produce a much more complete and accurate record of the very important contributions so many thousands of people at this remarkable plant made in devoting their careers to the strength and defense of our Nation throughout a perilous fifty-year period of her history.