CHAPTER VIII 



The Manhattan and Elsie 

 Projects 



Wesley W. Meyers 



Mr. Meyers received a BS degree in chemistry from Illinois Wesleyan Uni- 

 versity in 1937, after which he was employed as a metallurgist until he was 

 called to active duty with the Navy in 1943. Naval Reserve officer duty brought 

 him to Dahlgren in 1944, and he remained in a civilian capacity after being 

 released from the Navy in 1946. From 1946 until 1956, he served as Head of the 

 Plate Battery Division and Special Projects Division. From 1956 until 1968, Mr. 

 Meyers was Head of the Development Division in the Terminal Ballistics 

 Laboratory. He then served as a division head in the Engineering Department 

 and later in the Armaments Development Department before his retirement in 

 December 1974. 



The following interview with Mr. Meyers was conducted by Cynthia Rouse at 

 the Dahlgren Laboratory on December 1, 1976. 



Can you relate the events leading up to the Manhattan Project and Dahlgren' s participa- 

 tion? 



The Manhattan Project was undertaken by the government in the 1940's 

 primarily to determine if fissionable material could be obtained to make an 

 atomic bomb and if there was enough of this material available. The material 

 under investigation was uranium, of which the predominate isotope is uranium 

 238. This is not a fissionable isotope. Actually, the chemical composition of 

 natural uranium, as mined and refined, is approximately 99.3 percent U-238 

 and .7 percent essentially U-235, which is a fissionable isotope. The big prob- 

 blem, of course, is to separate the fissionable isotope and get enough of the 

 enriched fissionable material to make atomic weapons. 



However, this was only one of the aspects of the Manhattan Project. There 

 were many others, but they were all divided into bits and pieces scattered here 

 and there. Very few people had the overall picture of what was going on. They 



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