Editing Manhattan Project (section)

== Personnel ==
[[File:Manhattan Project employment graph 1942-1946.png|thumb|Manhattan Project contractors' employment, August 1942-December 1946]]
At its peak in June 1944, the Manhattan Project employed about 129,000 workers, of whom 84,500 were construction workers, 40,500 were plant operators and 1,800 were military personnel. As construction activity declined, the workforce fell to 100,000 a year later, but the number of military personnel increased to 5,600. Procuring the required numbers of workers, especially highly skilled workers, in competition with other vital wartime programs proved very difficult.<ref>{{harvnb|Jones|1985|p=344}}.</ref> Due to high turnover, over 500,000 people worked on the project.<ref>{{cite web |first=Alex |last=Wellerstein |author-link=Alex Wellerstein|date=1 November 2013 |title=How many people worked on the Manhattan Project? |publisher= Restricted Data |url=https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/11/01/many-people-worked-manhattan-project/ |access-date=28 March 2023}}</ref> Most African Americans were employed in low-level jobs, but there were a few [[African-American scientists and technicians on the Manhattan Project|African-American scientists and technicians]].<ref>{{cite web |title=African Americans and the Manhattan Project  |publisher=Nuclear Museum |url=https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/african-americans-and-manhattan-project/ |access-date=12 April 2024}}</ref> The unique labor and security requirements also resulted in the Manhattan Project having a higher percentage of women in technical roles than later government projects.<ref>{{harvnb|Howes|Herzenberg|1999|pp=14–15}}: "On the basis of numbers alone, women were important at all the project sites. They accounted for 9 percent of the 51,000 employees at Hanford in 1944, when the site's staff was at its largest. At Los Alamos, when tight security made it difficult to hire people who did not already live on the site, opportunities for women may have been even greater. In September 1943, some sixty women worked in the Technical Area at Los Alamos. By October 1944, about 30 percent, or 200 members of the labor for in the Tech Area, the hospital, and the schools were women. Of these, twenty could be described as scientists and fifty as technicians. ... The number of women working on the Manhattan Project contrasts sharply with the [[Apollo program|Apollo Project]] of the 1960s, which was comparable in size and scope. At its peak in 1965, when Apollo engaged 5.4 percent of the national supply of scientists and engineers, women accounted for only 3 percent of [[NASA]]'s scientific and engineering staff."</ref>

In 1943, Groves obtained a special temporary priority for labor from the [[War Manpower Commission]]. In March 1944, both the War Production Board and the War Manpower Commission gave the project their highest priority.<ref>{{harvnb|Jones|1985|p=353}}.</ref> The Kansas commission director stated that from April to July 1944 every qualified applicant in the state who visited a [[United States Employment Service]] office was urged to work at the Hanford Site. No other job was offered until the applicant definitively rejected the offer.<ref name="appasco19450808">{{Cite news |date=8 August 1945 |title=1,000 were at Pasco |pages=1 |work=Lawrence Journal-World |agency=Associated Press |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8CZdAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0loNAAAAIBAJ&pg=6919%2C1569861 |access-date=24 October 2022}}</ref> Tolman and Conant, in their role as the project's scientific advisers, drew up a list of candidate scientists and had them rated by scientists already working on the project. Groves then sent a personal letter to the head of their university or company asking for them to be released for essential war work.<ref>{{harvnb|Jones|1985|pp=349–350}}.</ref>
[[File:Leslie Groves at Oak Ridge.jpg|thumb|left|Major General Leslie R. Groves Jr., speaks to service personnel Oak Ridge Tennessee in August 1945.|alt=A large crowd of men and women in uniform listens to a fat man in uniform speaking at a microphone. They are wearing the Army Service Forces sleeve patch. The women are at the front and the men at the back. Beside him is the flag of the Army Corps of Engineers. Behind them are wooden two-storey buildings.]]
One source of skilled personnel was the Army itself, particularly the [[Army Specialized Training Program]]. In 1943, the MED created the [[Special Engineer Detachment]] (SED), with an authorized strength of 675. Technicians and skilled workers drafted into the Army were assigned to the SED. Another source was the Women's Army Corps (WAC). Initially intended for clerical tasks handling classified material, the WACs were soon tapped for technical and scientific tasks as well.<ref>{{harvnb|Jones|1985|p=358}}.</ref> On 1 February 1945, all military personnel assigned to the MED, including all SED detachments, were assigned to the 9812th Technical Service Unit, except at Los Alamos, where military personnel other than SED, including the WACs and Military Police, were assigned to the 4817th Service Command Unit.<ref>{{harvnb|Jones|1985|p=361}}.</ref>

An associate professor of [[Radiology]] at the [[University of Rochester School of Medicine]], [[Stafford L. Warren]], was commissioned as a colonel in the [[United States Army Medical Corps]], and appointed as chief of the MED's Medical Section and Groves' medical advisor. Warren's initial task was to staff hospitals at Oak Ridge, Richland and Los Alamos.<ref>{{harvnb|Nichols|1987|p=123}}.</ref> The Medical Section was responsible for medical research, but also for the MED's health and safety programs. This presented an enormous challenge, because workers were handling a variety of toxic chemicals, using hazardous liquids and gases under high pressures, working with high voltages, and performing experiments involving explosives, not to mention the largely unknown dangers presented by radioactivity and handling fissile materials.<ref>{{harvnb|Jones|1985|p=410}}.</ref> Yet in December 1945, the [[National Safety Council]] presented the Manhattan Project with the Award of Honor for Distinguished Service to Safety in recognition of its safety record. Between January 1943 and June 1945, there were 62 fatalities and 3,879 disabling injuries—about 62 percent below the rate of private industry.<ref>{{harvnb|Jones|1985|p=430}}.</ref>