Credit: Ed Westcott / US Army / Manhattan Engineering District
[1]
Calutron operators at their panels, in the
Y-12 plant at
Oak Ridge, Tennessee during
World War II. The
calutrons were used to refine uranium ore into fissile material. During the
Manhattan Project effort to construct an atomic explosive, workers toiled in secrecy, most having no idea to what end their labors were directed. Gladys Owens, the woman seated in the foreground, didn't understand the exact purpose of her job until seeing this photo in a public tour of the facility fifty years later.