Services will hold a including the post deputy under circuitry. Live coverage begins at 9 am eastern on cspan three. Online at cspan. Org or listen live with the free cspan radio app. 75 years ago, in the summer of 1945, the u. S. Dropped two atomic bombs on japan. One on hiroshima, on august six and the other on august sassy on august 9th. And this 2016 oral history, recorded by the World War Ii National history, then wed peterson. Was stationed at loss animals and working on technicians switches of the bomb eventually used nagasaki. The National World War Ii Museum provided this video. Im a new yorker born and bred in new york. I was born in the Lower East Side, interestingly enough thats where i am right now. Ive come back. I was born basically in the Lower East Side from immigrant parents. First generation american. My parents come from russia, they came in 1913 just before world war i. They met on the Lower East Side and we lived there for a while. I lived there until i was probably five or six years old. Then we gradually worked our way out of the Lower East Side. We move north to the bronx, where i grew up mostly. For a while we lived in a Community Called brighten beach in brooklyn which is a beautiful place right on the beach and long island. Many poor russians look there in those days. I had i would say a very poor. My father worked as a restaurant worker all his life. What is your moment . My mother worked in the garment industry, so she will take the subway downtown from the bronx every morning to work. My father worked in a cafeterias. My sister and i roslyn i were left more or less alone most of our lives. I was pretty much left alone most of the time i was growing. Up that was fine, i loved it because in the bronx, we live right next to bronx park which is a wonderful place for kids to go. Theres the bronx zoo and the botanical gardens. I used to go there all the time. I used to sneak into the bronx and night sometimes to see the animals. I have no complaints at all about being poor. We had a great time before. Right and beach was even better because it was right on the water. It was right next to coney island. I could go to to coney island ride on the cyclone, get hot dogs and nathans. I was a pretty lucky kid. Even though i didnt have to nickels to rub. Together what was school like even though we are in the bronx . I went to seven Public Schools. laughs because my father moved around. Every time we get a new job we had to move. Sometimes we got addicted cause we couldnt pay the rent. Once we got evicted because we had a rent strike. We got thrown out of our apartment. I went to a lot of schools. Several in brooklyn, most of them in the bronx. Does that make it kind of harder to maintain friends . Youre bouncing from place to place. I had a focus. I have to tell you this is important. I had a community which i considered my home. My longterm friends were in the bronx. It was a communist neighborhood. I grew up effectively in a communist neighborhood. There were a series of apartment houses which were coopt that were organized by the workers themselves. Very low for rent, you rent the apartment but the apartments didnt cost much. It was basically, it was jewish and mostly russian and exclusively radical and partly communist, partly leftist. He might say pink go red. Pick your color. When you say communist, is a communist inability for communist in practice . Communist in practice. My father was a member of the communist party. Many people there were members of the communist party. It was not considered to be particularly a horrible thing at that time. Everybody knew practically had the same kind of radical background. Many of them were russian jews who had fled russia because of the persecution by the saar. And he said tim isnt. They were naturally gravitated towards the revolution because they thought that the revolution would change russia and not be so antisemitic. Turned out boy they were they wrong. Because eventually stalin became even more anti semitic then before then the saar. Thats another story. And i did have a kind of strange background. We i had very Close Friends czar communist equivalent of the boy scouts. How i became a bugle or. I was known as benny the beutler. laughs we marched in the parade. I grew up in the bronx in a radical neighborhood the basically happy kid and i enjoyed lots of hobbies. Stamps, model airplanes just like every other kid practically. I was normal in most respects except for the politics which i guess was somewhat abnormal. You mentioned the you were poor growing up but did you family notice a difference when the Great Depression started to come true in the thirties or was it the same thing for you . The Great Depression affected is very badly. That was the time when my father could not find any work. 1931 and 1932 he was unemployed. We lived on relief. That brings me to my next adventure you might say. He heard of a group of restaurant workers who had been recruited to go to moscow, russia to construct a restaurant a huge factory a ball bearing factory moscow. It was to use American Equipment and american know how to produce a big ball bearing factory. Believe it or not, in 1932 at the very depths of the depression, we went to moscow to live. My suspicion was they expected to stay there. Didnt quite work out that way. laughs at first we lived in the hotel mosque of a which even to this day is a fancy hotel in the middle of moscow. We didnt stay there long. We got put up in a brandnew apartment house by the ball bearing factory which is on the outskirts. It was very luxurious apartment. And had two bedrooms for me and my sister and my parents but it should come as no surprise to experts on the soviet union, we share the entire apartment with an entire family the same size. So there were two families living in a two bedroom apartment. We stayed there probably about six months six months in the hotel and six months at the apartment from the ball bearing factory. My sister and i commuted into moscow to the Angle American school and. Thats where i went to school while i was in moscow. There was an English Speaking school run by couple of communists naturally. We didnt learn very much. But the big advantage of the school was they served free lunches. At least we had a good meal every day. What was the food difference like . Two Different Countries i mean thats gotta be. Food in russia is not what i would call very good. This is an understatement. At the school where i had my lunches, we mostly had fish. My parents had been told when we went from america to russia to take along some velour. The lula is foreign money. My parents took along a few hundred american dollars. That saved our lives because there was a story, excuse me a store in moscow. It was a store devoted entirely to foreign currency. Russians were not allowed to go there and they had no foreign currency anyway. We were allowed to go because we were american citizens. We could buy enough food there to keep us going. It was the few dollars that we had that really made it possible for us to survive. It was a very bad time. When you move there, was it in the summertime or the wintertime . The first thing that roosevelt it when he was elected, the first time, november 1932 within weeks we got our visas and passports and went to russia. We got to rush at the beginning of the russian winter. The winter of 1932 was a bad one. We really froze out. We had heat inside but outdoors we really froze. He come back from russia you come right back to new york . We manage somehow to get export visas from the russians. We had our passports so we did get out. I was about june of 1933 that we got out. Thats another story because we only had enough money to get to berlin. We bought tickets, rail road tickets and we got flat broke by the time we got to berlin. Now you have to think back. What was happening in berlin tonight at 1933 . Hitler just come the power. We ended up in berlin, for jews with no money in the middle of nazi germany. laughs thats a funny story itself. What saved our lives and to this day i still remember and always managed to give them something a christmas time. Was a hebrew rescue society. That was established to help jewish refugees. Somehow or other my father sent a cable, a telegraph to one of his brothers who sent us money to get to london. Thats as far as we got. He sent his money to get to london so we stayed in berlin for a little while a week or two. I have to say, my mother spoke yiddish which sounds like german. My mother would go around berlin and 1933 speaking yiddish thinking that she was speaking german. That was pretty fun. laughs somehow we survived. I thought we were american so they didnt bother us. We got to lanning grad stone broke a greg stone broke again. I thought we were german refugees. They thought were refugees from germany. So they pick this up and put us in a hotel and pay for our stay while we were in london. I first thought they were german russian refugees but they then they found that we are coming from russia. Somehow we managed to get the fair to new york. Honey has as america ship. Its a small u. S. Ship i was seasick the whole time getting back. And we got back to new york. Again we were flap brock. One of my fathers brothers put us up in the coops in their apartment for a while. So we live with them for a while for free what my father found a job. Found a job in a restaurant. Thats when we started to get our feet back and we eventually ended up with a small apartment. We always loved in one bedroom apartments, family of four. Kitchen at, living room where my parents lived and a bedroom that i share with my sister. At that point in 1933, we had a rant strike. The landlord raised the rent and they threw us out with our furniture on the street. We move back into the coops. It took us back for a while. My father finally got a halfway decent job in the cafeteria. Work for a while in the bronx then he got a job at the brighten beach cafeteria. We moved close to coney island idly time there. And then we move back to the bronx again. But then the most important thing of my life i think happened at that point. This is really important. When everybody in america to know this. I got a Free Education at city college. Thats what happened. See, new york city had sissi and why. A brooklyn college, queens college. They gave students with decent marks Free Education. By five by free i mean really free. The only thing they charged was lab these. I think in my first year was five dollars which i didnt even have. They waved the lab fee of five dollars. Can imagine . That but they gave me a Free Education and a good education. City college was a good education. New so i went back got into city college. I went there for two and a half years. Then the war started. And in the middle of my education, about two and a half years after i started, i could city college and took a defense job. I got a nice defends job working for the u. S. Signal corps in philadelphia, doing expediting of order of war goods to requisition army organization. So i worked for the secret court for a while and i got drafted. At that time. That took us, took me too late in 1942. So i got into the army around 1942. Late 42. Ky3 that starts. That takes care of my childhood. laughs that covered a lot. You went everywhere you did more Public Schools in more countries than most people do i want to seven Public Schools, i looked into countries. But, the defining thing was going to city college. Free education. The Free Education is what did it. Up to that point, i had just standard education, i knew i was going to be a scientist all along. I know i, i thought i was going to be an astronomer when i was five. I had already decided i was going to be an astronomer when i was five i had seen some Science Fiction movie and i came home and i told my parents that i was going to be an astronomer when i was five or six. And i didnt change much, from astronomy i came to physics, which is not that different. But i always throughout my childhood, i kept diaries of science, i read signs books, i read Science Fictional lot. So i was oriented toward science, thats what got me away from politics. I lost my interest in politics when i was late high school, when entering city college. My politics eventually disappeared, because i was much more interested in science. Now that youre in college, youre 20 years old when pearl harbor gets bombed. Do you remember where you right when you found out . Yes. The i was walking home and i walked into the the entrance to my apartment house and somebody said that the japanese bond pearl harbor. Thats how i remember that. We knew that everything is going to change that time. What was your first reaction . Were you angry . No, i wasnt angry. I was just impressed by the enormity of it. I knew it was going to happen. That is why i enlisted. Im sorry, i didnt and list. Thats why i quit school and joined the center core, as a civilian. By that time, you have to understand, everybody was in favor of the wars. Not like now, the country was entirely united at that time after pearl harbor. Not before pearl harbor, but after pearl harbor, the entire country became united. Everybody was working for the same immense. And so was i. When they drafted you, you dont have a choice. I did have a choice. I worked for the core, they asked me to ask for government but i said no. I said i would rather go into the army. Why is that . You had a good job, you are civilian status. Yes but i was expediting equipment, that wasnt really fighting the nazis or anything like that. So i decided i would rather go into the real army. Slight little patriotism in there, says i want to do something. I have to tell you, you know, everybody felt the same way. I felt the same way, i hated the nazis, i knew about what the nazis were doing to jews, i know what they were doing to europe, i knew what the japanese are doing to china. It wasnt very difficult to be in favor of the war and to do everything you could. We did everything. We collect cigarette linings for the aluminum and cigarettes. We raised money what they called push because, handheld receptacles to get the money. To help the war. It was pretty unanimous. And of course, in addition to all that, hitler had invaded russia. So we were very pro russia, that did hit our patriotism. Especially, you were in moscow before. It got personal. How dare you . Youve been there. It all fits together pretty well. You get drafted into the army, into the army air corps. No, i started thats another funny story because i got drafted into the army a little secret, i was never sworn into the army. They took me to to an army base in an island outside new york. To get my physical, to get sworn in, but i went to the bathroom by the time i got out of the bathroom they had already sworn everybody else in. So i always felt that i could if i really got mad at everybody i could say, im not in the army because i never was sworn in, but i never had the nerve to do that. Was it Governors Island that you want to . Yes. Thats where i went. The governor silent. That was a big post before it shut down a few years ago. Governors island is where i went. I went from a physical there, and i was not sworn in at Governors Island. I got my orders, after a few weeks, and i went to fourth ticks in new jersey. For sticks, new jersey it was a huge army base. Where i was supposed to take my basic training. Another military youre supposed to do basic training i did three days worth of basic training. On the third day, they ship me out, because they needed people to go, they needed tail gunner for be 17s. That was before the be 29. The b 17s. They needed tail gunners like mad. In 1942. But the tail gunner was also the Radio Operator. So i had to go to first, Radio Operator school. So they sent me to Radio Operator school from from fort dix after the fourth day. At Radio Operator school, i forgot to say, target practice was the fourth day of basic training, that was the fourth day. And i left on the third day. I missed target practice. And i ended up, this is hard to believe, i ended up on Lake Michigan in the biggest tell in the world. The army had taken over the hotel, and that is where they had the radio school, it was in the hotel. I ended up with a few of Lake Michigan in the middle of chicago. Going into radio school. So i i did good radio school, i learned the mores code. I learned how to operate the equipment. And everybody at the end of the three months, everybody else got tripped up. They got shipped out from tail Gunner School and they kept me there as an instructor. Why did they keep me there is an instructor . I guess because i had already had two and a half years of college and i knew some radio theory from my first courses. I knew a little bit more than most of the other guys did. So they kept me there and i became an instructor. For the radio school. I stayed in chicago, having a great time as a gi in this wonderful town, which was very gi happy. They loved soldiers in chicago. The midwest, leaving new york and learning a little bit more about america by going to chicago, which is in the midwest and which is really midwest, friendly and warm, and completely different than green hook. I loved it there. New york and chicago are different. Very, very different. So i became a radio instructor, i went to the various soldier places, like the various places where they have kids eating, playing, playing pingpong and things like that. Meeting girls what they called the jewish welfare board, which is a nice place to meet jewish girls. And so i had a wonderful time in chicago. Hey this is 42, 43. This is 43. Did you ever get a chance to go to a cubs game or any baseball games . 43, you had the all american girls starring around there. I didnt go to baseball games. I was not a cub fan, i was a dodgers fan. inaudible i wasnt interested in the cubs. But i was interested in girls. The jewish welfare board had a really wonderful place where i would go, all the time. After school, after work, i would teach the gis, teach the radio and then i would go off they would go to tail Gunning School and i would stay there and teach more. How long did you stay at the school . Six months. I believe, it was three months in tail gunner, radio school and then i became an instructor, and i was there for six months is an instructor. And then i heard of something called the asap p. Have you heard of it . The Army Special Training program . Thats right. The astp. I couldnt believe my luck. The astp, the army realized that world war ii was not like world war i. The army needed technical people. They needed engineers more than anybody else. More than any other group thought they had engineers even more than infantrymen. So they hired. They sent guys back to school the College Instructors teaching regular courses at an accelerated rate. Each semester was three months long and so in from chicago, i went for testing at the university of illinois. In chicago, i went to i went to the university of illinois, and then i went to Columbus Ohio search for nine months, taking three semesters, a true Electrical Engineering course. Really true course, including learning how to deal with d. C. Motors and learning the generators, electronics so at this time, it was the end of 1939, 1943. It ended in 1943. And believe it or not in 1943, you know what happened at the end of 1943, the battle of the bulge. It wiped out the astp right away. They shipped everybody to belgium. So all my buddies disappeared, everybody went to belgium and the army to do real fighting real fighting, and at that very moment, my commanding officer, who knew that i was a new yorker sir told me, he said to me, there are a group of civilians who are coming here to the university of ohio state. To interview people, for something called the manhattan project. Looking for physicist and chemist to work the manhattan project, he said peterson, Everybody Knows youre a new yorker. Which i like to go back to new york . So i said sure. He said okay, well set you up for an interview. I got set up for an interview, i was interviewed by this board of three civilians. Who were obviously scientists. Three civilian scientists. They asked me questions which had nothing to do with the army. They asked me what i wanted to be when i finished, when i got out of the army. I said i was a physics major and i wanted to be a physicist. And they asked me some simple physics. Questions thats never noodles laws and things like that. There wasnt very much longer after that interview that i got shipping orders to go to knoxville tennessee nashville. Why . I had no reason to know why i was going to knoxville. The scientists who interviewed me gave me some secret orders, they were marked secret and all i know that i was going to knoxville. I got to knoxville and they took me on another train and i went to a place called oak ridge. Are getting closer. laughs i want to overage, tennessee and they put me up in the barracks with the civilian girls cleaning up the barracks. I was the first time the seventies beside me had to clean up the barracks. But at that point i knew it was something very special because they were cleaning up the barracks for us. They didnt have to do that. It was clear that there were something going on that i didnt really know. The other thing that was going on in this town called oak ridge it was a brandnew town. It had just been built. He was still muddy everywhere in the throes of construction. There were big buildings going up all over the place. It was clear that it was a secret city. But what i was doing of course i had no idea. Were you in a barracks now . We were in a barracks in this town called oak ridge, tennessee. This newtown brandnew barracks, brandnew city. How long did you stay in oak ridge . One week. Again, we went through another battery of questions. So they asked me all kinds of questions. What they really wanted to know apparently was was i a physicist a chemist or a mathematician. They found a very quickly i was a physicist. My shipping orders were after a week at oak ridge were to santa fe, new mexico. A few bodies who went with me who are also physics types. The ones who didnt go were chemistry types. So i figured out loss alamos was physics and oak ridge was chemistry. That in itself would be for so many new physics to figure out that there was Something Special going on and it turned out indeed it was. Oak ridge is primarily used to separate the isotopes to 35 from 2 38 which was basically a chemistry problem. Loss animals was the place where they designed how much to be made that was a physics problem. You mentioned some of that there is making a type of alcohol. These buildings were total and narrow and around. They looked like a distillation plant. I said to me what the heck are they doing with distillation plants here. They must be making alcohol. Could they be doing to make the drunk germans drunk . So it would be easier to fight them . Its possible, but it seemed highly unlikely. That they would be making alcohol distillation plants laughs . But they really looked like distillation plants. The rip pipes on the outside, there were stuffing boiled going up. It was clear a distillation plant. But why would they be doing it, making alcohol . Is that really a good way to win the war . That was my thought at the time. I put it out of my mind because i couldnt think of anything else. I found out later of course that it wasnt a distillation flat. Uranium to 35 is lighter than uranium to 38 and uranium to 35 as the iranian isotopes that does undergo Nuclear Fission. Uranium 2 38 does not undergo Nuclear Fission. In order to build a bomb, you have to have relatively pure uranium to 35, which is a fraction of normal uranium. So they had to get rid of the large majority of the normal uranium. One way to do it a simply by distillation. Having the lighter element boil away and the captured somewhere else and the heavier element just stay there. One way for making 2 35 purist by distillation. There were other ways to, and they were down in other places. But oak ridge is mainly four to 35. Germans reusing the term heavy water. They were using norwegian area where they will try to use something different. Heavy water was not for Nuclear Fission. Heavy water was used as a moderator for a Nuclear Reactor. Nuclear reactor is not a bomb. Its a controlled fish and device that slowly produces Nuclear Fission and uranium seeking generate heat and usable power. Wouldnt happen all wants which is what a bomb would be. The reason we use heavy water was that they needed slow neutrons. The new transit are produced by Nuclear Fission are fast neutrons. The neutrons there would be absorbed by the iranian would have to be slow. So you have to have a way of making slow neutrons and of fast neutrons and Nuclear Reactor to have a controlled process. That would be useful for producing energy, not a bomb. So the heavy water, is only twice the mass of a nutriment so they moderate very rapidly. That is, if you have to objects with both have the same mass, the transfer momentum is very efficient. The further apart they are in mass, the last decision. See like to have something that has a similar mass in a neutron to produce the slow neutron from the fast neutrons and thats where heavy water comes. And they couldnt use light water because you cant produce. Like waters to impure it would absorb neutrons. You have to have heavy water which is approved some plus in neutron would not absorb and neutron that would be the best moderator. Thats where the nazis were trying to get their heavy water from the norwegians. You have a wealth of knowledge. I beg your pardon . You have in a wealth of knowledge. So now youre headed down to mexico. Thats where the physicists are gone your people. Not the cameras. There were some high energy chemists who actually turned up at los alamos. One of my best friends. But they were doing nuclear chemistry, not atomic chemistry. One way or another i ended up at this place 1 09 on the square, the main square in new mexico. That was in santa fe. There i met this lady at a store front who is apparently the lady who greeted everybody who went to los alamos. She greeted everybody, everybody came to the same store front, one on nine palace avenue. In santa fe. I came in the same place, one or nine palace avenue, i was met by the same lady who made me feel comfortable, made me feel at home. They got an army car for me and put me in the car and drove me away. We drove for a while up the side of a mountain and thats how i got lost alamos. I got a loss alamos, basically i was alone at that time. Dorothy mackinnon that surname. She took care of me, got the car, put me in this army sedan and we drove to los alamo. When i got a lot alamos, all i saw was a guardhouse. We went up the side of a cliff, who was looked very scary. There was an army guardhouse. It was just a plain old wouldnt guard house with two or three soldiers. Didnt look like much. Of course i show the my shipping orders. They let me in they sent me to an Army Barracks. I got into an Army Barracks and i went to sleep. I woke up eventually and i spoke to somebody. Next day after i got and i got a job. That must have been a huge temperature change, going from tampa tennessee to new mexico. Let me see. It was probably 43. It must have been right in the middle or the beginning of the winter. Eagle from the mountains of tennessee down to the dry air of new mexico. But the weather wasnt that bad. I love the weather in santa fe. It was dry, sunny. It was cold but not unpleasantly cold. Not like here. laughs not at all. I was still a soldier. I was still in uniform and i got a job. I was given a job. I still had no idea what was happening. I started out a mysterious oak ridge, and then i see even more mysterious lost alamo. I had no idea what was going on. I was given a job. My first job, the very first job i was given was blowing up steel tubes, exploding steel tubes. I was given a steal to this big, a couple of inches in diameter. I will use some primer cord, which is an army explosive, it looked like rope. The army uses it all the time to blow up bridges. I will wrap around the steal some gauges, some strained gauges which would measure the distortion of the of the steel container when i blew up something inside the container. It would measure the strain. So my job was to measure strains of exploding tools. Why was i doing . I still had no idea. I did that for a few months. A few months of just blowing up tubes. . Yeah. Appeared to two destructive if i stayed in the same place. So i kept moving. So i go to another mesa. Id be blowing up these tubes. I show them to my supervisor, a physicist, a real professor. My first real professor outside of city college. He would analyze these explosions, the distortions of the explosions and he would tell me to try this, try that. I would act like an assistant, like a graduate student. He became my life very good friend, philip the moon. He was a professor of physics but he was british. The british had arrived and then arrived with the same time as i had, but within a week or two. The whole british contingent. We are all working working on the atomic bomb were shipped over to los animals. I was given this assignment blowing up steel tubes. He was from birmingham philip moon. Do you think that information helped transfer over to operation jumbo. Yes that was jumbo. It was supposed to be the preliminary jumbo. I found out at that point that there was something called jumbo. Okay. Now you have a name. I knew it was called jumbo. I was testing something that was supposed to be and. Jumbo jumbo was the big whos ten feet in diameter. A cylinder 20 feet long. To three inches of. Still i didnt know why. Why was i testing these things . We want to see if this container would contain this explosion. Thats why i was testing the steel tubes to see if the big container would be corrupted by the explosion or would hold its shape. I still didnt know what was going on. But it turned out at this time it was two or three months later that i received my orders my clearance. Despite all that, i got my clearance. Despite all the background i got clearance and the army sent investigators to investigate my life back in the bronx. They decided that i was reliable. Much to my surprise they decided this. I have to hand it to them because by then i was certainly not a communist. I was anti communist. I didnt like what russia was doing in finland and i really wanted to be a scientist. Despite of my spending eight months in russia, despite my parents being communist, i received my secret clearance. I really have to hand to them for what i consider to be the biggest favor of my life. They didnt ship me a. Others got shipped out right away. A good friend, whose father was a leader of an offshoot of the communist party and who became a famous physicist later in life was shipped out immediately. Spend only about a week or two there. They didnt like his politics and he was ship to. I was not shipped out. I was given security clearance. As soon as i was given clearance, probably within a week of getting clearance, i was called to a meeting and i was addressed by george qishan george kitchener kasky was a professor of chemistry at harvard. He told me what i was doing. Then i found out at that time he told me everything. There were lots of myths going around but he only had need to know stuff but i was told everything. What was john before . Jumbo was simply a container in which the first atomic bomb was to be placed. If the atomic bomb fizzled, the rain activity we contain and would not contaminate the entire area. That was the whole idea of jumbo. Just as a safety feature. Thats all i was doing. That i knew what i was doing. A new but the atomic bomb. A new book Nuclear Fission. I knew but what the germans were doing. I knew about what was going on about loss animals, what was going on a no bridge. I knew everything. That was an important day in my life
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.