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.")''A Philadelphia StoryTHE SECRET DEATHS continued.Arnold Kramish is tormented byinjuries sustained in perhaps the worst fluoride accident of World War II.Sitting in a New York hotel eating breakfast one October 2001 morning,pastry crumbs sprinkling his shirt, Kramish described how he still endures"painful" fluoride skin eruptions on his legs fifty-seven years aftersurviving an explosion that killed two of his colleagues.In the 1970s hesought medical help for the recurring sores.A Navy doctor explained tohim that fluoride "stalks you the rest of your life."He is stalked, too, by memories of the chemical "hell" that erupted inSouth Philadelphia in September 1944.After the war Kramish became atop nuclear scientist and government diplomat, well-versed in the ways ofgovernment secrecy.But half a century after the fluoride accident, in a bidto gain recognition for the victims, Kramish broke his silence and revealeddetails of that disaster, including the names of the men who were killed andwhy General Groves kept the deaths secret.28On the morning of September 2, 1944, twenty-one-year-old PrivateKramish and engineers Peter Bragg and Douglas Meigs reported for duty atthe sprawling Philadelphia Navy Yard.The Yard housed a super-secretfacility using hot liquid fluoride and pressurized steam to enrich uraniumfor the atomic bomb.29 Kramish was one of ten volunteers who had arrivedto train on the new equipment.Just three days earlier, at the ManhattanProject's vast construction site at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, HarvardUniversity president James Conant had gathered the men and asked forvolunteers.Conant warned them that their work in Philadelphia would be"one of the more dangerous parts of the Project," remembers Kramish.James Conant was acutely aware of the dangers the men faced fromfluoride.The chemist was one of President Roosevelt's top atomic52 CHAPTER FOURadvisers.He knew about the DuPont Teflon deaths.And he had seen thesecret army reports on fluoride toxicity that General Groves had requestedin December 1943.10 The reports explained that the military was carryingout wartime human experiments with fluoride gases at the army'sEdgewood Arsenal in Maryland, searching for chemical warfare agents."The army had received data about fluoride experiments on humans inEngland that had produced powerful central-nervous-system effects.i2 Andthere were reports from captured prisoners of war suggesting that the Nazis,too, were investigating fluoride as a war gas.33 Harvard's president was so"disturbed by the extraordinary" toxicity of certain fluoridecompounds, especially those used in the human experiments, that he issueda secret warning to a senior U.S scientist about the atomic industrial" "fluoride work.As an organic chemist," Conant wrote, I think I shouldpoint out to you.it is conceivable that similar effects would occur withany fluorinated organic acid, although probably the compounds would beless striking in their action.It is further conceivable that these compoundscould be formed in small amounts by the action of fluorine gas on the acidsor related compounds.'That fall day at Oak Ridge, however, as he asked for volunteers, Conant"did not mention fluoride.All ten men raised their hands.Any mildlyinquisitive guy was not going to opt out," said Kramish.At first the Philadelphia mission was more Keystone Kops than cloakand dagger.When they arrived at the Thirtieth Street train station, amilitary official in street clothes ordered them into Wana-maker'sdepartment store to replace their uniforms with anonymous civilian garb.But the Navy did not give them enough money, and all the men could findwere cheap Hawaiian shirts, says Kramish.He remembers ten men"furtively changing into their new outfits" in a nearby subway station,emerging into the sunlight wearing brightly colored shirts and GI boots.Two days later Kramish, Bragg, and Meigs were at the Navy Yard,working on the secret machinery.At lunch Kramish received a two-dollarbill in his change."Give it back," his friend told him, warning that it was anomen of bad luck.Kramish pushed the bill into his pocket.That afternoon, back at the plant, at 1:20 PM a massive explosionsuddenly tore at the machinery.Boiling steam and fluoride jettedGENERAL GROVES'S PROBLEM 53onto Kramish's legs and back, clawing at his lungs and eyes.He fellbackward, temporarily blinded.A trained scuba diver, Private JohnHoffman ran into the smoking chaos holding his breath, pulling the injuredmen from the room and slicing Kramish's clothes from his burned body.This act of bravery would win Hoffman a Soldier's Medal, although the"award was kept secret.I pulled three guys out.Everybody wasshell-shocked," Hoffman told me."Fluorine gas had gotten loose it waspretty pungent.I had to watch what the hell I was doing."35The afternoon detonation echoed across South Philadelphia.A giantwhite plume of uranium hexafluoride gas drifted over the dockyard andinto the nearby battleship USS Wisconsin.Douglas Meigs and PeterBragg lay in their death throes.A priest attempted last rites on Kramish,whose wife was told that he had been killed.A once secret report of thedisaster makes gruesome reading: twenty -six men had been exposed to460 pounds of fluoride and uranium in a "huge chemical cloud." DouglasMeigs was "sprayed with live steam containing liquid, solid and gaseousmaterial in large quantities"; he died after sixteen minutes.Peter Braggexpired an hour later with third-degree burns over most of his body.He" "seemed in a great deal of pain," the report noted, and became violentshortly before death and resisted all attention."The remaining men survived, although many had serious and"slow-healing wounds.Some experienced intense pain in the scrotum,penis, or about the anus, probably because of the hydrolysis of thechemicals in these moist areas," the report notes.Survivors also sufferedunusual "nervous system" effects.One man was temporarily rendered"almost incoherent." This "altered mental state" was "more than could beexplained on a purely fear reaction basis," the report said."In allprobability the injurious effects observed on the skin, eye, mucousmembranes of upper respiratory tract, esophagus, larynx and bronchi wereall directly caused by the action of the fluoride ion on the exposed tissues,"concluded a military doctor [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]