Y-12 Building 9206

Y-12 Building 9206

Secrecy and betrayal in a Manhattan Project workplace.

(A sub-blog of Leaving Secret City)

Every atom of uranium in the atomic bomb detonated above Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, had previously passed through the calutrons and process facilities at a secret location in East Tennessee, initially designated as "Site X", and later changed to Clinton Engineer Works. The effort to create the bomb is known as the Manhattan Project. The photographs displayed in the post "1945 - Building 9206 Personnel - Staff and Shift Workers" show some of the personnel from that place and time. My mother, Claudia F. Osborn, can be seen in Photograph No. 2. My father, F. N. Case, is in all of them.

At the end of the war, Manhattan Project workers receive lapel pins, E-Awards, and certificates of appreciation from the Secretary of War. The following year operations at Y-12 are drastically cut back and my mother, along with thousands of her co-workers, lose their jobs. Nonetheless, many of them will remember the last few years as the best years of their lives.

Decades later, some of them, like my mother, develop cancer. Those who worked closely with uranium develop cancer at a rate exceeding that of the general population. Yet, even today, this fact is not well known by the general public. It rarely appears in the popular literature on the subject. It only first came to my attention during a conversation with my father. You may read about that conversation in the post entitled "Introduction: They Were Expendable."

In the course of doing so, I came across wartime documents and other matters that I found "disturbing" in light of our previous conversation. These set me on a journey to learn more. I am not happy with what I learned. This blog is my tool for organizing and publishing the results of my research.

- W. David Case