The Manhattan Project: Dad's tale

This Memorial Day, I remember my dad. That's him kneeling on the far right.

He entered the Army Air Force younger than he was supposed to. He lied about his age. As I mentioned in another post, he left home very young, hitch hiked around for awhile, then enlisted as a private, being discharged before the big crash on Wall Street.

He told stories about his enlistment, like the doctor who gave him his physical was a man whom he knew. His family had given the good doctor a puppy who he named Cuff after my dad's family. This doctor advised my dad to bide his time to enlist until he got the unit he wanted which Dad did and was rewarded by getting into the photo squadron.

He was one of the "Great Generation" who survived the Great Depression, and though he didn't actually fight during WWII, he played a role in the Manhattan Project. Just a few years prior to his death, Dad told me the rest of the story about this photo. This wasn't just a pheasant hunting trip in California with his buddies. He told me that each of these men came to California from the multiple bases that were developing the atomic bomb to meet up with my dad. Each man came with a piece of the bomb where they put it together and loaded it onto a Liberty ship in Oakland. He said that ship sailed and rendezovoused with another ship somewhere out in the Pacific where the bomb was transferred to be delivered to the Enola Gay.

I knew that he had some part in the Manhattan Project. My mother told me how much she hated it because they had to live on base and the whole family was tightly controlled who they could fraternize with; their coming and going on and off base monitored and sometimes were followed. From what I gather, I believe Dad was a procurement officer. He heald the rank of Captain then, having received a field commission. He told stories about how he would need materials or parts for the base and he got it, sometimes commandeering items from other bases. He had top secret clearance and pretty much anything he wanted, he got. He was also trained to arm and disarm the atomic bomb. This made him a valuable asset but even though they tried to get him to come back after his discharge, he had enough of the cloak and dager.

I asked him how he felt once that thing hit Nagasaki. He gave me his usual Gallic shrug and said, "Hell, we knew that thing was going to be big, but we couldn't have imagined what it would really do. We realized that we had let the genie out of the bottle."

I guess you could say he really found out after the war ended when he was sent to old world Japan among the US occupation troups. He was just a New Jersey farm boy emersed into a very ancient culture. Fortunately, he had enough sense to learn their culture even if he didn't really understand it. He told of a very sad order by the high command to search and destroy all samurai swords. The soul of the samurai families were considered to be in the sword and so perhaps in this action, it broke the back of any attempt to resist the occupation. No one knew what to expect of the Japanese population as the US troups came into their country. Broken, the swords were dumped out into the ocean to rust, these beautiful relics that represented generations of history.

During Dad's free time, he would often visit a little mountain village where they raised silk worms and produced silk fabric. Dad would buy silk and send it home to my mother who made clothing for herself and my sister with it. I know Dad would be very interested in the whole process and likely asked many questions. Shortly before Dad was to ship out and go home, a temple monk in the village invited Dad to attend a ceremony. During this rite, a monk presented him with a samurai that had been hidden in the temple. It was beautiful even though the jewels that encrusted the handle had been removed. Dad carefully wrapped it and placed it in the center of his duffle bag for the journey home. I have seen this sword on several occasions when Dad would take it out and tell me about the little temple and the people he got to know.

Years later, he pulled it out again from it's protective wrapping to show a Japanese co-worker. Dad asked him if he could translate the etching that was on the blade. It turned out to be poetry. Later that year, this same co-worker put Dad in touch with a delegation of men who were in the US looking for samuari swords that made it out of Japan. As Dad promised the monks, he gave the sword to them to send it home. We never knew what became of the sword after that, but I imagine that it is sitting in its holder under glass in a museum, or maybe even better, was returned to the temple in the hill village.