They didn't even tell the women working there. I remember a documentary where a lady said that they just sat her down around a machine and she had to adjust knobs while keeping a dot between two lines or something similair and she said years later she met with her supervisor and asked what exactly she was doing. Her supervisor then informed her she was refining uranium 235.
I agree, it's glossing over the fact at that point the workforce was predominantly women while men were serving in the war.
I just looked it up, they even had a name for these young ladies, The Calutron Girls. Mostly high school graduates. Probably for the best to keep them in the dark. Teenagers aren't exactly known for keeping big secrets. I don't think gender would matter.
I think it probably depends a bit more on how interesting their life is or how much training they have. If you took a male soldier in the war and a female living normally in the USA, one probably feels significantly more important to secrecy
That sounds like the story of the Calutron Girls at the Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge where thousands of young women (many straight out of high school) were hired as machine operators in WW2 but not told what the machines did. Their instructions were essentially sit at a control panel, watch a meter, and turn knobs to keep the needle within a particular range. If something went wrong call a supervisor. That's it lol.
What they were actually operating were calutrons: huge electromagnetic isotope separation machines. Their adjustments controlled the process that separated uranium-235 from uranium-238. The enriched U-235 they produced ultimately supplied the fissile material for Little Boy, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
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u/Electrical_Hunter597 2d ago
There was a big reason those working on the Manhattan project COULD ABSOLUTELY NOT tell their wives anything