Engineer Memoirs
The weapons that had been assembled up to that point had been assembled by teams of
scientists and engineers from Los Alamos and Sandia Base in Albuquerque. At that
stage nuclear weapons were not being mass produced as they are today or as other
weapons were then. They were not being produced in a factory. All the components
were made separately. Then a special team put them together.
The fusing, the batteries, and other components had to be monitored constantly. The
plan didn't call for assembling a lot of weapons and having them in storage. Assembly
was part of the operation. If you were going to use them, then you'd assemble them.
This has evolved, but I am talking about the way it was in 1946.
Groves' concept was that you should have an Army unit, an Army engineer battalion
that would assemble nuclear weapons. Company A was the security company. That was
an MP [military police] operation. Company B was the assembly company.
Q:
So you were in B?
A:
I was in B.
Q:
You were the commander of B.
A:
I wasn't the commander, definitely not. All these people were officers or very senior
NCOs. Groves' concept was that it all had to be done by officers. He got out the West
Point register of graduates and looked only at the top 50 or so people in each class. He
picked a few--most of whom were majors--from the classes of January 1943 and June
1943. Most were from the classes of 1944 and 1945. There were about 60 of us. They
were all majors and captains. He brought us all to Sandia Base.
[Colonel Gilbert M.] Gil Dorland was the commander. After he retired from the Army,
I think he went with one of the steel companies. [Colonel Alexander J.] Al Frolich was
his deputy. They were above the battalion. Dorland was the commander of Sandia Base,
and Frolich was the deputy commander of Sandia Base.
They set up a school. It was self-taught. People were told to be instructors in certain
areas. They would work up classes to teach everybody the theory and practice of
various disciplines--electronics, explosives, nuclear fission, et cetera.
Q:
That's a long way from a battalion that flunked booby traps.
A:
Yeah! It was a completely different operation. At one point along the line, I served as
S3 of the battalion as a captain. But for most of the time, most of us were technicians.
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