Let’s remember when the people of Richland learned what was really going on at Hanford, on this day in 1945 (August 6)
August 6, 1945 is a day etched in a lot of people’s memories. It’s the day President Truman announced the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima. It has a local connection, too, as some key parts of the bombs were made at Hanford.
As HistoryLink’s Jim Kershner tells it:
On August 6, 1945, when President Harry Truman (1884–1972) announces the atomic bombing of Hiroshima that day, the residents of Richland discover the truth about what they have been producing at Hanford. The news of the atomic bombing is accompanied by another bombshell for residents of Washington: Key atom bomb components were produced at the super-secret Hanford Engineer Works just north of Richland. Many Richland residents only now learn exactly what they have been making since 1943.
For two years, Washington residents knew that something big was going on at Richland and Hanford. The population of this dusty, sagebrush area had mushroomed to more than 40,000 workers at its peak. Yet even most of the workers themselves did not know exactly what they were building.
“Guesses ranged from a new rocket bomb to a derivative of nylon,” said the Spokane Daily Chronicle the day the news came out of the Hiroshima bomb. “Tongues wagged, workmen talked, nearly every truck driver who passed that way had his pet theory. Many may have guessed the correct answer. But still the riddle of Hanford remained, and the secret was kept.”
“Build locally, bomb globally” sounds horrible to put on a bumper sticker.
Read the whole thing here:
