Interesting Facts
HILL OF SECRETS: A NOVEL
Who lived at Los Alamos in 1945?
Some 6,000-plus people lived and worked on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. In addition to the scientists, their spouses and children, there were also enlisted men from the Special Engineer Detachment (SED) (1,823 men by August 1945) and other units and women from the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) (260 of them by August 1945). The scientists hailed from all parts of America, significantly supplemented by European, mostly Jewish, scientists who had fled the Nazis. Latinos and Native Americans were also part of the community, mostly as maids, handymen and construction workers. There is no record of Blacks at Los Alamos although they were involved in the Manhattan Project at other locations.
Los Alamos — Baby making, not only bomb making
Eighty babies were born in the first year of Los Alamos’ existence as a military base, leading Robert Oppenheimer to ask his boss in Washington, General Leslie S. Groves, for an additional on-site doctor. Groves curtly answered that Oppenheimer ought to assert more control over his scientists, to which Oppenheimer replied that there were some things he could control — and some he could not. The incident prompted a limerick which made the rounds among the scientists at the time:
The General’s in a stew
He trusted you and you and you.
He’d thought you’d be scientific;
Instead, you’re just prolific.
And what is he to do?
Groves eventually acquiesced and an additional pediatrician arrived in 1944.
Two hundred and eighty babies were born at Los Alamos during the war. But since Los Alamos was top secret, their place of birth on their birth certificates was listed as POB 1663, Santa Fe.
Does the pond where Christine and Gertie really exist?
Yes. It is called Ashley Pond, although it should rightly be called Ashley Pond Pond because it is named after Ashley Pond Jr. who founded the Los Alamos Ranch school, a residential boys’ school which operated from 1917 until 1943 when it was requisitioned by the army for use by the Manhattan Project. In July 1944, 10-year-old Elmor R. Bowen, Jr. the son of a civilian employed at Los Alamos, died when his canoe capsized. He did not know how to swim and did not grab the canoe’s life preserver. The accident led to a ban on swimming or canoeing on the pond for many years.