now i am become death, the destroyer of worlds

As part of the Manhattan Project, the Alsos Mission was an effort made by Allied powers to investigate the German nuclear energy project. Alsos Mission personnel followed close behind the front lines and occasionally behind enemy lines, searching for personnel, records, material and sites to evaluate the German nuclear project, to further American research, and to prevent their capture by the Soviet Union. 

German prisoners, while in custody, indicated that uranium and thorium were being processed at a plant in Germany, and the plant was bombed by Allies on 15 March 1945. In early April 1945, an experimental centrifuge for separating uranium isotopes was uncovered. On 23 April 1945, in a laboratory in a cellar, a German experimental nuclear reactor shaped like a cylinder and made of graphite blocks was discovered by Alsos personnel, but the uranium and heavy water were absent. It was immediately dismantled. Later, a sealed drum of documents was retrieved from a cesspool and three drums of heavy water and 1.5 tons of uranium cubes were found buried in a field. The apertures in the cellar were destroyed with minor explosions.

Ultimately, the Alsos Mission contributed very little to the Allied defeat of Nazi Germany, largely due to the fact that the German nuclear and biological weapons programs turned out to be much smaller and far less threatening than had originally been feared.

Top photo: Alsos Mission personnel uncovered cubes of uranium hidden by German scientists in a field.

Middle photo: Alsos Mission personnel dismantle the experimental nuclear reactor German scientists had engineered as part of the German nuclear energy program.

October 24, 1962 – Day 9 of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Nikita Khrushchev writes an incensed response to President Kennedy’s October 23rd letter announcing the naval quarantine of Cuba.

Dear Mr. President:

I have received your letter of October 23, have studied it, and am answering you.

Just imagine, Mr. President, that we had presented you with the conditions of an ultimatum which you have presented us by your action. How would you have reacted to this? I think that you would have been indignant at such a step on our part. And this would have been understandable to us.

In presenting us with these conditions, you, Mr. President, have flung a challenge at us. Who asked you to do this?

Technicians load fuel inside the pressure vessel of the 250-mw Advanced Test Reactor at the Atomic Energy Commission’s National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho.

Petrov, thinking that any U.S. attack should have involved even more missiles to limit the chance of Soviet retaliation, told his Kremlin bosses the alert must have been caused by a malfunction. He persuaded Moscow not to shoot back.

It was later determined that Russian satellites must have mistaken sunlight reflecting off clouds for nuclear missiles.

⚛ New Bethel Baptist Church / ORNL

The New Bethel Baptist Church is the only remaining building of the Scarboro community before the surrounding land was bought by the US government. In 1942, the area of Bethel Valley was acquired for around $45 an acre, leaving its former residents to vacate. Most buildings were destroyed to make room for the X-10 site, but the church remained as a useful meeting place to planners close by. 

Inside the building today, there are many photos and artifacts dating back to prior times. The cabinets and photos memorialize those who lost their homes as a sacrifice to victory. Behind the church is a small graveyard, many of the gravestones still intact. Unfortunately, taking pictures of the outside of structures on-site at this time is strongly discouraged, so there are none shown here.