Manhattan Project feed materials program: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 17:13, 21 April 2025

Revision as of 17:14, 21 April 2025

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==Organization==

[[File:Feed Material Network.png|thumb|right|Feed Material Network - organization chart]]

[[File:Cumulative receipts of uranium oxide in ore by source for the Manhattan Project.png|thumb|A graph showing the cumulative receipts of uranium oxide in ore and concentrates for the Manhattan Project (1942-1947). Numbers are in tons of uranium oxide.]]

Initially, the firm of [[Stone & Webster]] made arrangements for the procurement of feed materials, but as the project grew in scope, it was decided to have that company concentrate on the design and construction of the [[Y-12 electromagnetic plant]], and arrangements for procurement and refining were handled by Marshall and Nichols.{{sfn|Manhattan District|1947a|pp=1.15–1.16}}

In October 1942, Marshall established a Materials Section in the Manhattan District headquarters under Lieutenant Colonel Thomas T. Crenshaw Jr., an architect. To assist him, he had [[Captain (United States O-3)|Captain]] Phillip L. Merritt, a geologist, and Captain John R. Ruhoff, a chemical engineer who, as St Louis Area engineer, had worked on uranium metal production.{{sfn|Jones|1985|p=307}}<ref>{{cite magazine |title=Thomas T. Crenshaw Jr. '31 |magazine=Princeton Alumni Weekly |date=4 December 2013 |url=https://paw.princeton.edu/memorial/thomas-t-crenshaw-jr-31 |access-date=20 February 2025}}</ref> When Ruhoff, a chemical engineer who worked for [[Mallinckrodt]], was inducted into the Army, Nichols had him assigned to the Manhattan District.{{sfn|Compton|1956|pp=95–96}} Crenshaw became the officer in charge of operations at the [[Clinton Engineer Works]] in [[Oak Ridge, Tennessee]], in July 1943, and was succeeded as head of the Materials Section by Ruhoff, who was promoted to lieutenant colonel.{{sfn|Manhattan District|1947a|pp=1.15–1.16}}{{sfn|Jones|1985|p=308}}

The following month, the Manhattan District's headquarters moved to Oak Ridge, but the Materials Section and its successors remained in New York until 1954.{{sfn|Jones|1985|p=308}}{{sfn|Harris|1962|p=30}} Nichols, who succeeded Marshall as district engineer on 13 August 1943,{{sfn|Nichols|1987|p=101}} felt that this was a better ___location for it, as it was close to the ports of entry and warehouses for the ores and the headquarters of several of the firms supplying feed materials. He reorganised the section as the Madison Square Area; engineer areas are normally named after their ___location, and the office was located near [[Madison Square]].{{sfn|Jones|1985|p=308}}

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The ore in Staten Island was transferred to the [[Seneca Army Depot|Seneca Ordnance Depot]] in [[Romulus, New York]], for safe keeping. Meanwhile, arrangements were made to ship the ore from the Belgian Congo. The Shinkolobwe mine had been closed since 1937, and had fallen into disrepair and flooded. The [[United States Army Corps of Engineers]] restored the mine, expanded the aerodromes in [[Léopoldville]] and [[Elisabethville]], improved railroads and built a port in [[Matadi]], Congo's single outlet to the sea. The army also secured the remaining ore in Shinkolobwe, which was shipped to the United States: 950 tons of approximately 70% ore and 160 tons of 20% ore.{{sfn|Williams|2016|pp=1–6}} As the port of Lobito in [[Portugal during World War II|neutral Angola]] was considered a security risk, all uranium transported by sea from the last week of January 1943 was routed through Matadi in sealed barrels marked "Special Cobalt." The uranium was first sent north by train from Shinkolobwe to the [[railhead]] at Port-Francqui (now [[Ilebo]]) on the Kasai River. From there, the sealed barrels were loaded onto barges to be transported to Léopoldville (now known as [[Kinshasa]]), where they were taken by train to Matadi.{{sfn|Williams|2016|pp=1–6}}

Sengier thought it would be safer for the ore to be shipped in fast {{convert|16|kn|kph|adj=on|sp=us}} freighters that could outrun the German [[U-boat]]s rather than in [[convoy]]. This was accepted, and the first shipment, of {{convert|250|LT|t|order=flip}}, departed on 10 October, followed by a second 20 October and a third on 10 November. The shipments were managed by the [[American West African Line]], known as the [[Barber Line]], which ran a service between New York and Matadi.{{sfn|Williams|2016|pp=1–6}} Uranium for the Manhattan Project was also transported by air on the [[Pan American Airways]] [[Boeing 314 Clipper|clipper]] service. The Brazil–West Africa air link was extended to reach Leopoldville, primarily to gain access to uranium from what was then the Belgian Congo.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Stanley |first=William R. |date=1994 |title=Trans-South Atlantic Air Link in World War II |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/41146247 |journal=GeoJournal |volume=33 |issue=4 |pages=459–463 |issn=0343-2521}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Vaz |first=Mark Cotta |title=Pan Am at War: How the Airline Secretly Helped America Fight World War II |date=2018 |publisher=Skyhorse PubJerseyPublishing Company, Incorporated |others=John H. Hill |isbn=978-1-5107-2950-6 |___location=New York}}</ref> Thereafter, ore was shipped at a rate of {{convert|400|LT|t|order=flip}} per month from December 1942 to May 1943. Two shipments were lost: one to a U-boat in late 1942, and one due to a maritime accident in early 1943. The ore arrived faster than it could be processed, so it was stored at Seneca.{{sfn|Hewlett|Anderson|1962|p=291}}{{sfn|Nichols|1987|p=47}}{{sfn|Jones|1985|p=80}} About {{convert|200|ST|t|order=flip}} was lost. Later shipments were temporarily stored at the Clinton Engineer Works. In November 1943, the [[Middlesex Sampling Plant]], a in [[Middlesex, New Jersey]], was leased for storage, sampling and assaying. The ore was received in bags and sent for refining as required.{{sfn|Manhattan District|1947a|pp=2.5–2.6}}

In August 1943, [[Winston Churchill]] and [[Franklin Roosevelt]] negotiated the [[Quebec Agreement]], which merged the British and American atomic bomb projects,{{sfn|Gowing|1964|pp=168–173}}{{sfn|Bernstein|1976|pp=216–217}} and established the [[Combined Policy Committee]] to coordinate their efforts.{{sfn|Jones|1985|p=296}} In turn, the Combined Policy Committee created the [[Combined Development Trust]] on 13 June 1944 to procure uranium and [[thorium#Occurrence|thorium ores]] on international markets.{{sfn|Helmreich|1986|p=16}} Groves was appointed its chairman, with Sir [[Charles Jocelyn Hambro|Charles Hambro]], the head of the British Raw Materials Mission in Washington, [[Frank Godbould Lee|Frank Lee]] from the [[HM Treasury|Treasury]] delegation as the British trustees, and George Bateman, a deputy minister and a member of the [[Combined Production and Resources Board]], representing Canada.{{sfn|Gowing|1964|p=301}}{{sfn|Jones|1985|p=299}} A special account not subject to the usual auditing and controls was used to hold Trust monies. Between 1944 and his resignation from the Trust at the end of 1947, Groves deposited a total of $37.5&nbsp;million (equivalent to ${{Inflation|US|37.5|1944|r=2}}&nbsp;million in {{Inflation/year|US}}).{{sfn|Jones|1985|pp=90, 299–306}}