James Edward Westcott

Mr. Westcott was allowed to photograph work at one portion of America's "Manhattan Project," the highly secret World War II endeavor to create an atomic bomb. These were all taken at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

 A billboard in Oak Ridge, photographed during WWII, on January 21, 1944

  

 A billboard posted in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, on December 31, 1943

  

 A caultron "racetrack" uranium refinery at the Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 

during the Manhattan Project. The light-colored bars along the top are solid silver.

  

 A Link Trainer, a type of flight simulator produced between the early 1930s 

and early 1950s, in Oak Ridge, in September of 1945

  

 A young entrepreneur during the days of the Manhattan Project, in Oak Ridge, Tennesee

  

 Calutron operators at their panels, in the Y-12 plant at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 

during World War II. The calutrons were used to refine uranium ore into fissile material.

  

 Early Construction of the K-25 uranium enrichment facility (background), 

with one of original houses of Oak Ridge, Tennessee in the foreground, in 1942

  

 Tulip Town Market, Grove Center, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 1945

  

 Kiddy Club at the Midtown Recreation Hall in Oak Ridge, on January 6, 1945

  

 Lie detection tests were administered as part of security screening

  

 Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer at Oak Ridge, on February 14, 1946. 

Oppenheimer was called the "father of the atomic bomb" for his role 

as the head of the secret weapons laboratory of the Manhattan Project

   

 Shift change at the Y-12 uranium enrichment facility in Oak Ridge. 

Notice the billboard, "Make CEW count Continue to protect project information." 

CEW stands for Clinton Engineer Works, the Army name for the production facility.

  

 The main control room at the K-25 uranium enrichment plant in Oak Ridge

  

 This 1945 photograph shows the giant 44 acre K-25 plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where the uranium for the first atomic weapon was produced.

  

 Welding at the K-25 facility in Oak Ridge, in February of 1945. At the height of 

production, nearly 100,000 workers were employed by the government in the secret city.

  

Workers perform maintenance on a cell housing in the K-25 

uranium enrichment facility, in Oak Ridge, Tennesee

 

V-J day celebration in Jackson Square in downtown Oak Ridge in August of 1945.
When the first atomic bomb was dropped on Japan on August 6, 1945, the news
reports revealed to the people at Oak Ridge what they had been working on all along.

 

An "Atoms For Peace" traveling exhibit in Oak Ridge, in 1957