PatH., I agree. As far as Tubealloy the Quest For Product, I again found myself bogged down. I just feel while there is some importance to understand the process, this is just more information than necessary. I suppose if you were writing a book on the process, it would seem of interest, especially to those with some scientific knowledge. D.K. seems to be repeating herself a lot. Although I did read the chapter, I had to skip pages once again for redundancy, and uninterest. I so want to hear more about the women, their feelings, their lives not just inside the plants, but more about outside the plants. D.K. only gives us tidbits, and then back to the process.
I did find this rather interesting, and gives a bit of an insight to the psychological effect, working in and under these conditions they dealt with.
pg. 96 "For some residents, however, life on the Reservation was too trying. Chief Psychiatrist Dr. Eric Kent Clarke, who had just arrived several months earlier in March 1944, found himself challenged by what he soon realized was a very unique community. Combine, cramped quarters with isolation and secrecy and he discovered that a lot of people were in a perpetual state of edgy exhaustion. The kind of rehashing of a day's work with a spouse or roommate that most adults took for granted was not permitted. Relieving stress by talking about what was worrying you was not an option, since most worries were related to work, and off-limits topic.
Residents had left familiar traditions and support networks behind, and there was little to replace them. Clarke reported that it had for some time been suspected that there were many psychiatric problems plaguing the residents of Oak Ridge, but that these situations were neither recognized nor well-defined . That's where he came in.
":By March, 1944, the need for specialized service to cope with the personality disturbance became apparent and psychiatric service was established," Clark wrote in one of his early reports.
From the beginning the residents have been subjected to many additional stresses absent in the usual community which have created tensions. Material necessities were still in embryo form, and it required a true pioneer spirit, that was often lacking, to make an easy transition to a community still in the making.
This was an eye opener as well:
pg. 97 "Despite all the planning the military did with regard to Townsites and homes and religious groups and softball leagues, there was no real plan for Oak Ridge beyond the timetable of the war itself. CEW had a single goal: to enrich Tubealloy for the Gadget.
But whether the Project had intended it or not, CEW was a social experiment of sorts.
After reading a ton of reviews at Amazon.com, written by many relatives of these women who worked at CEW, they mention how they never talked about their years working there, even though they were no longer under the secrecy act. Some felt they never dealt or got over the fact they played a part in killing innocent lives, especially children. I would venture to guess back in the 40's and 50's, getting counseling, therapy or any type of psychological help, to learn to deal with all they lived through was not readily available to them, after the war ended. Soldiers returning home from wars deal with PTS, trying to deal with everything, including their guilt and struggle with the moral issue of killing others. Yes, they know it's a part of war, but their human instincts, and their moral compass does not always align with, "It had to be done, kill or be killed." We see what effects it has on their lives. This project, these women worked on, was just as troubling, I am sure, once they learned what they were doing, not to discount the living conditions, and prejudices they had to live with on a daily basis.
