Shangri La (CV 38) - Naval Cruise Book

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, Q7 physicists and chemists were able to determine its chemical and physical prop- erties, proving the theoretical physicists to be correct on its atom bomb potential, a tremendously important achievement when it is realized the element did not exist on this planet eighteen months before. Three plutonium plants were under construction soon after the first pile was in operation. The West Stands, or Argonne, plant was primarily a research and investigative operation, producing laboratory quantities at low energy levels. The Metallurgical Laboratory, as the secret project was known, provided the theory and experience for the larger Clinton and Hanford projects before break- ing down the uranium-graphite pile in 1944 to build a new heavy water-uranium pile which exceeded Permi's fondest anticipation, proving the heavy water mod- erator's eflicacy for greater energy output. The Hrst large-scale plant was started at Oak Ridge, Tenn., in January, 1943. Clinton provided a pilot plant for the difficult chemical separation processes while producing an appreciable supply of plutonium and U235 from the more abundant U238. Primarily it served as a biological research laboratory on radio- active gasses and diseases resulting from alpha, beta, and gamma ray radiation. Intelligence reports through the Norwegian underground indicated German con- centration on nuclear fission and hinted a possible recourse to gaseous by-products of her experiments. Trained Norwegian engineers managed to destroy over 1,000 pounds of deuterium oxide and later Allied heavy bombers destroyed the Norsk Hydro heavy water laboratory at Vemark, Norway, killing her leading nuclear physicists in the raid. Clinton's first pile was operated November 4, 1943. The site for the third and largest atomic energy plant was selected in late 1942 by General Groves and representatives of the DuPont Company fwho had reluctantly accepted the tremendous assignment in spite of overwhelming war emergency demands on their other facilities, insisting on a cost-plus-one- dollar contractl. Located on the high, lava plateau regions of thinly populated eastern Washington, the Hanford plant utilizes the unlimited cooling powers of the Columbia River as it tumbles seaward towards the Snake River junction, Spike Jones Party aboard ship. I SPI -WHMQ GQU

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Freak crash on fantail - pilot walked away. strips or boron steel bars. With the cadmiu are absorbed into the cadmium to such an extent that chain-reaction is inter- rupted. On Decembe Z 1942 at West Stands? m control strips inserted, neutrons r , , the first known pile was operated successfully Meanwhile, experiment with the cyclotrons Cinvented by Dr. E O Law- rencej at the University of California at Berkeley, and Washington University at St. Louis, had provided about 500 micrograms Qless than a pinhead in sizej of plutonium by bombarding uranyl nitrate. From this microscopic amount, fFor a full report read ATOMIC ENERGY, by H. D. Smyth, Princeton Press.

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Captain Cruise. forty miles below. Over 60,000 workmen crowded the west banks of the mighty river during the early construction stages, which commenced April 6, 1943. The first of its three piles started a chain-reaction cycle in September of 1944, pro- ducing plutonium from a uranium-graphite lattice. Security does not permit publication of the power level or energy output in these piles but an idea of the staggering project may be gained from the knowledge that the Clinton pile attained an energy release of about 1,800 kw., which is approximately the emis- sion necessary to produce one gram of plutonium per day. On another plateau far to the south a winding mountain road was witness to strange motor caravans carrying huge cargoes to a row of buildings which once housed a boarding school. Many of America's most famous physicists made the trek to the isolated laboratory at Los Alamos, where the Atomic Bomb was born. In the guarded depths of those buildings within thirty miles of 25 0-year- old Santa Fe, New Mexico, Dr. J, R. Oppenheimer and a host of scientists worked out the intricate mathematics, physics, and chemistry for the mechanism of an unbelievably powerful bomb. Prom March of 1943 to a final tense morning in July of 1945, these men checked and rechecked theories and estimates born of experiments with microscopic amounts of plutonium. They found no way to test-fire small amounts of plutonium or U235-it must apparently reach the critical size to undergo fission. The most likely means of an efficient explosion would be to propel as a projectile a part of the bomb against the other, achieving critical size quickly enough to enable the entire mass to undergo ission. The effectiveness is increased by the use of a tamper or a dense envelope which reflects stray neutrons back into the mass, reducing the possibility of a dud. In early July of 1945, the scientists were ready for the supreme test. Gathering in a remote section of the Alamogordo Air Base between the Sacramento Moun- tains and the San Andres Range in southern New Mexico, they prepared for the most important event in over nineteen hundred and forty-five years. Civiliza- tion stood at the threshold of a new world. Man's ingenuity had finally solved the secret of the atom and stood ready to unleash its pent-up force. The test was conducted under the direction of Dr. Oppenheimer, with Gen- eral Groves as oflicial representative for the United States Government. The Cake cutting - I4,000th landing