Transcripts For CSPAN3 Oral Histories Eugene DiSabatino 20240712

Wilmington, delaware. My family had a Construction Business there, which was quite old. It is still in business. And i went to school in delaware, i went to the university of delaware. So my history basically was in delaware before i went into the service. Now i tried to enlist in the service the minute we were attacked by japan. But i was colorblind. And i could not get in. But they had what they called the enlisted reserve corps. Which they let College Students go into with the idea that you would serve a basic training and then you would go back to school, and the thinking was maybe this war wasnt going to go too far. So you would go back to school and you would start again wherever you left off. I went to try to enlist, but i was colorblind. Had to go back. Finally i got in the army. But i was restricted in what i could do. I went to texas for basic training. I spent 16 weeks in texas. They sent me from texas to the university of connecticut to continue my education. And unfortunately, when i got to the university in connecticut, i had had everything they were teaching. I had already been through it. So i reported to them that i was wasting my time. And they suggested that they would send me up to m. I. T. That is what happened. They sent me to m. I. T. I did my job at m. I. T. From m. I. T. , i was sent to nyu. And from nyu, i went to los alamos. Tell me the process of well, first of all, what were you studying at m. I. T. And nyu . Eugene i was basically in engineering the whole time. That is what i had done in college. I was a Civil Engineer. I graduated before i went to m. I. T. And nyu. Ok. And then once you finished at nyu, tell me about how did you end up at los alamos . Eugene well, i was just selected one day. The officers came to our class. I guess it was at nyu. And they interviewed us, and one of them said you are going to go on an assignment someplace else. We will just give you your orders in a few days and will be out of here. That is when they picked me to go to oak ridge, tennessee, which is where i went to, and from there i started out and went to los alamos. But i went by train, no air conditioning. We ended up in new mexico, it was about 16, 20 miles from los alamos. They picked us up in army trucks and delivered us to los alamos. That is how i got there. And the first guy we met was a major who was in charge of security. Major da silva. And of course he told us we were going to be restricted to that base for the total period that we were in los alamos. We would not be let out of there. And if we violated security anyway, we would probably end up in africa someplace. In the weeds. That is how we started off. Then, they changed their mind and eased things up. Because they found that a lot of us had not any experience at all in the service. As they pointed out, out there, some of them had trouble saluting. They didnt even know what a salute was. They just knew they were in the service, thats all. When you were sent first to oak ridge, did you have any idea what the heck was going on . Eugene no, i didnt have any idea. I was put into a barracks and just said stay there. A couple of days they came and got us and said we were leaving. I had no idea what was going on in oak ridge. None. At the point you met major desilva, did you have any idea . Eugene no. It was typical of service in that particular situation. You wouldnt believe it would happen, but you would be standing in the middle of it and you wouldnt really know what was happening. There was a lot happening that you didnt know about, yet you were part of it happening. So, i didnt know what they were doing at oak ridge. I didnt know what they were doing at los alamos. I had no idea about anything. All i knew was what i was doing. Lets get into that. After this meeting with desilva, what happened to you next . Did they bring you in . Eugene well, within a couple of days, we arrived and were screened by desilva and warned about the security. We were all called to a big Assembly Room and the physicists who were at los alamos in those days came in and began to interview. Each physicist had a list of people in their hands and they would call a name. Whoever the person was would go out and we would have an interview. And they would decide where this guy or girl was going to be assigned. In my case, it got all the way down that i was the last one in the room. When Norman Ramsey said youre a Civil Engineer, i dont know what we are going to do with you. That was my introduction. As i said, i didnt get myself out there. We worked from there. From that night, i knew what we were doing. He told me what we were doing. Of all the people i knew in that site at that time, nobody knew what we were doing except me. None of the g. I. s knew. They knew they were working in the tactical area, working here. They didnt know what they were doing. They knew a specific job they were doing it, but they had no idea why they were doing that job. Haddad he explained to you what it was they were doing . Eugene he had to tell me ultimately, after he found out i was a Civil Engineer and i was there and he was going to have to use me, he said come to my office with me. He took me to my office and said heres what we are going to do. We are going to build a big bomb and we are going to drop it. He said this im in charge, meaning ramsey, im charge of this Delivery Group of getting this bump over to japan and he said you are going to be on my team. There are only five of us on my team. Now, our first job, believe it or not, was to develop ballistics to use the drop the bomb. We did. We had a pilot and a bombardier from akron, ohio. The pilots name was shields and the bombardier was named sempel. They would come over with a plane and drop some dummy bombs. These were bombs that looked like pumpkins. They would drop them and we would photograph them. We would work backwards to find out how you have to set the bomb site to make those bombs go where you wanted them to go. We had to develop the bomb tables before we could start drop the bombs. We did that for some time. I worked on that with two g. I. s, three g. I. s. One from chicago. Two were not engineers at all. One was a young boy from chicago. So there were five of us working on that. Tell me how you ended up at wendover. Eugene i ended up at wendover just because they were going to open up a test site. They brought this Bombardment Group that had been in europe flying b17s. They came to the United States, picked up a bunch of b17s and they were sent to wendover. They had to have somebody to run wendover and i had no idea. I happened to be standing in the right place at the right time, for me. They just said one day, you are going to leave los alamos tomorrow. You are going to do this and that. You are going to end up supposedly in wendover. I took a devious route to do that. I had to go to albuquerque. I had to change from g. I. Clothes to civilian clothes. I went out and got on a c47. Then, we leave and we file a flight plan for Salt Lake City, from las vegas. Before we get there, the pilot changes the flight plan and we turn off and we go to wendover. Los alamos thinks we are going to las vegas and they dont know we were going to wendover. That was part of the security. And then, of course, from wendover, i flew down to salton sea, california. Ultimately, salton sea was developed so they could take off from wendover with b29s, fly over to San Francisco, down the west coast and fly in over salton sea and make the bomb dropped on a target that was floating in the sea. The idea trying to replicate a long flight from that bomb into bombay. Meantime, they are making all the measurements up in the plane to make sure the bomb is riding the way it should and we are on the ground with cameras waiting for them to drop that bomb so we could take a picture to see how it lands and how accurate they are. Checking the readings that we have been giving them to use on the bomb site. Occasionally, we would not only drop the bomb, but we would go back, if it missed the target by a sizable amount, we would go back in the desert and dig it up. We would dig down 25, 30 feet and bring it back up and see if we can figure out if the tail bent or Something Like that. That was all part of it. Meantime, i lived in the officers quarters down there, wearing civilian clothes. These young guys used to shove cue sticks in my face. Bang my newspaper magazine because they thought i was a draft dodger. But, they didnt know so it didnt matter. Even the people didnt know you were u. S. Army. Eugene nobody down there knew. They could. I would go from there back to salton sea. Once a month, i would go back to los alamos had to go back to get paid. I would go back, get my sergeants pay. The next day, i would go back down again. Captain winslow would put civilian clothes on me and i would take off for wendover again. That went on once a month until almost the end. How long were you at los alamos before they send you to wendover . Eugene i probably worked at los alamos for six months or so, working on we had machines that they use in hollywood to slice film in the movie industry. Transmissions from the airplane that was dropping the dummy bombs. That way we could work backwards to see where the bomb left the plane and where it hit the ground. You develop figures that way. I probably spent six months or so. Did you say you were married at that point . Eugene no, i got married at the end of the war when i got back. That is how i got back. I talked the general into letting me come back and get married in berkeley, california. Tell me a little bit more before we go on from there. What was it like at los alamos . All these people there and nobody could talk about what they were doing. Eugene los alamos, basically in the first place, it sat up on top of a mountain. It was a boys school at one time, very exclusive. To get there, you had to go up the side of the mountain. If you went off the side of the road, you had a nice roll down the hill. Once you got to a gate at the top, a guard gate where they stop you and got your identity and so forth. From there, you go on in. The first thing you came to was the Technical Area, the beginning of the Technical Area. It was up on the level part of the property. That is where a drugstore was and a Grocery Store and so forth, and where the original boys school used to be. You came to that first. Then, when you went over that hill and on down the bottom, that is where all the military personnel live. The engineers, the military what do you call them . Special you know, the army police. Mps . Eugene the mps had their barracks. In you went all through that and you went all through that. You go to the bottom of the hill and then you begin to get into the various areas where everything was restricted. You couldnt go there unless you worked there. There were many sites back in these hills where only the people that worked on that particular compound could go to work. I could not go wandering around somebody elses site. Site restricted to my where i worked. So, the place spread out quite a long way. I have been back since. Of course, it is much larger now. Is that where you met your wife . Tell me a little bit about that and her and what she was doing there. Eugene as i said, she worked for the university of california through the aviation lab at berkeley. She was a single girl. My recollection is when i met her, she might have been working at a bookstore. Im not sure. She had gotten her degree from the university. She was working for the university and she had a side job working in a bookstore in berkeley. I met her there. The you sooner the university of california asked her to go to los alamos. She was single and had nothing else more important to do, so she said what do you want me to do when i get there . Well, you are going to be a secretary to admiral parsons and ramsey. You will work in that office. One thing, she had the talent. She could do anything in the secretarial field, plus a college degree, so she was the lead person in the office. There was another girl by the name of hazel who was also a secretary, but she was not college material. That is how mary claire got started. Then, i met her just walking back and forth in the halls. As i pointed out, i stopped and gawked at her one day and she wanted to know what the hell i was looking at. And i told her the best looking legs in los alamos, and that did it. I asked her for a date, she wouldnt go. She called me about 10 days and said ive got a free night. That was all i needed. Tell me about you talked about him a little earlier. Tell me about working with him, what he was like. Eugene when i met him, he was a commander. He was no little guy like i was. He showed up in the office, he introduced himself. He had a great big english bulldog he had with him. As long as he was in the Technical Area and not someplace where dogs wouldnt be allowed, he had this english bulldog. He began he was a weapons , officer. He told me he was going to start running this particular part of the show and i was going to be working with him, which was perfectly fine by me because he was one of the finest guys i ever met in my life. So, i began to work with him. I particularly remember he would have an english bulldog with him, the dogs tongue would fall out and he would take his tongue up and put it back in his mouth. When we started down in salton sea and wendover, he stayed mainly in los alamos. Although, he did direct what was going on at salton sea. In wendover, he was doing it through me. He was giving me orders and telling me what to do. But he was a great guy. What rate where you at the time . At thenk were you time . Eugene i was a sergeant. Tell me about the meeting you had with ramsey, getting you civilian clothes in delaware. Meeting your father and all that stuff. Eugene i told you that they decided i should be traveling in civilian clothes. They didnt want me traveling in uniform. One thing we had, there were a lot of people in wendover i mean at salton sea and los alamos, who worked around the country in various capacities who traveled, for instance, in uniform. An ordinary civilian would go, if he was going to go. The bomb release mechanism was built byand tilt the Dupont Company in wilmington, delaware. The engineer in charge would put on an Army Officers uniform, maybe as high as a major. He would go to wilmington, inspect the work that was being done, identify himself as major soandso. And that was the way was accepted and that was the way it was accepted. In my case, we did it the other way around. I was the only one i knew in los alamos who went around in civilian clothes and did what i did. To the best of my knowledge, nobody else went from uniform to civvies except me. Now, when these guys went where they went the fella i was telling you about who went to delaware. I came from delaware, i knew the Dupont Company, i knew exactly where he was going. When he started telling me, i was describing where he was going to be. He just worked on the development. Tell me about you go home to get your clothes. You cant tell your mom and dad whats going on. Tell me about what your father thought. Eugene i pulled in. When i went home, they sent me home my recollection is i got on a c47. Now, im having trouble. I might have gone back to delaware on the train. When i got to delaware, i showed up at my fathers house, knocked on the door. He opened the door and almost dropped dead. He wanted to know what was i doing and why was i there . Of course, i said i got to get some civilian clothes. Then, immediately, he starts, i dont understand. You are in the army, why do you need civilian clothes . Im not supposed to tell him about that. So, we spent a good day and i told him i had to go to philly the next day because i could not get the quotes in wilmington. Wilmington. Es in they told me not to do that. He bugged me the whole time. Why am i doing this . I dont understand it. Are you sure you didnt do something wrong . I dont think this has to be part of the story, but while he was doing it, he was pulling out 20 bills. I think i had died and gone to heaven. The next day, we got in the car and we went to philadelphia. My recollection is it was a place called bond. I had been there before. We just went in and bought these clothes, paid for them, walked out. Then, i had trouble with the policeman which ended up being a nonevent but it tripped my father up. He really got to the point where he was suspicious. He thought something really wrong was happening. We talked about it offcamera, but tell me what the Police Officer did and how you got out of that situation. Eugene the Police Officer was right. I had gone through a red light. I realized when i did it. It was one of those things where you are going too fast, the light changes, you cant stop. I went through it. He immediately jumped on it. He had me. He pulled me over. First, he looked in the car and said, how come you are not in the army . I said im just not in the army. I dont understand. A guy your age and you are not in the army . No, im not. Well, you just passed a light back there. You ran through a red light. Well, ok, if i did, i did. Im sorry. I did not mean to do it. I knew i had slipped through. I didnt mean to. He said, well, i dont understand this. Everybody is in uniform and you are sitting there at your age with no uniform. So, i was told before i left los alamos, i was given that car and they said if it gets to the point where it gets a little sticky, hand him the card. The card says this person is representing the United States research and development, blahblahblah. It had a name on it. Please do not delay him. Whatever he is doing is legitimate. He read that and he looked at me for a bit and he almost threw the card at me and said i dont know what you are doing, but go ahead. That started my father wanting to know what the card said because i had not shown it to him and i wouldnt show it to him. One thing when you do these kinds of things, some of the rules you have to kind of make them up yourself. They cannot give you every detail. I knew i shouldnt hand him that card, my father. Of course, he was absolutely adamant he had to see that card. After buying me civilian clothes, he had to be suspicious anyway wondering what the hell is happening. So, that was the way that worked. Tell me about, a little more about wendover and what that was like. You were talking about wearing civilian clothes. You get there and overseeing this project with a bunch of military guys. Talk about that a little bit and some more about what you are doing there. Eugene well, as i told you, i had to go to los alamos to get paid. We covered that. Then i had to go back to wendover. I would do that by doing the devious route, going down, changing my clothes. The captain, winslow, would come meet me, take my g. I. Clothes, give me civilian clothes, put me on a c47, and supposedly send me to las vegas. That was the beginning of it. I would do that once a month. From there, i would always end up in wendover. When i got to wendover, i would just go to the Officers Club and they had a bed for me. They didnt ask questions and i did not have to answer anything. Sometimes i would go up to the Little Casino at the top of the hill and play the roulette wheel for quarters, but there was nothing else there. It was a small casino and it was right on the utah line. I would get in there, go to bed. Next morning, i would start out in the desert to our trucks or whatever we were doing and start doing that. Naturally, those people that saw me come in there in civilian clothes and then wonder about me too. I am working with them and they are saying the same kinds of things. How come he is wearing civilian clothes and we are all in the army . But, it worked. I got to know them all and they believed i was in the army. I gave no reason not to believe it. And yet, we traveled together a lot. I knew them all, got along well. But they thought i was a civilian and they were satisfied with that. Tell me a little too about you meeting and knowing some of the officers. You mentioned everybody but the colonel. Eugene i knew tibbett from bumping into him, being in a meeting with him and chatting. Tibbett was not easy to know for me. Tibbett used to come to los alamos and i would periodically see him there. There, he had to deal with the girl that became my wife. She got to know him better than i did and got along better with him. Tibbett was the commanding officer, thats all. He was not really interested in some young civilian working on a project. I mean, he took me like all the rest of those civilians working on that project. He was the big gun and i stayed out of his hair. But, the rest of them, the whole gang, i ran around with them. We would go into Salt Lake City and we would all pile into one room. Im in there with civilian clothes, they are there with army clothes. They never asked the question, never. One night, we went into a hotel i dont know there was a sailors hat atop a wash stand and somebody got sick in the sailors hat. That was a lot of fun. We just ran around together, thats all. They got to know me. They knew i was working. They had no reason. Because there were a lot of civilians connected with los alamos. They would just say, well, this is one of those eggheads working for los alamos. Thats all. Say one of them was dutch van kirk . Eugene van kirk, sweeney, chuck sweeney. , sweeneyhat boxcar flew another plane. I knew sweeney. He was a great guy, nice guy. Farabee was quite a guy. They were all good guys. They were satisfied. I was a civilian, thats all. How long were you at wendover before you went to salton sea, or were you back and forth between the two . Eugene backandforth. Once i started at wendover, then it would be a situation where i would go to wendover, maybe i would stay a couple days and do some work or lay out some stuff that had to be done. Or maybe i wouldnt. Maybe the next day i would go straight down to salton sea. Now, salton sea was built by hollywood to film the picture wake island. I say that because i have been told that. I never saw it in a book but thats what they tell me. Thats why salton sea was there. It was a navy base that had been there for a movie. We lived in those barracks and we did our testing as i explained by running that big loop up San Francisco, which approximated the distances we were going to have to travel. Tell me about, after you spent all this time working on this project, tell me about going overseas. Tell me how you were going to get direct commission as an officer. Eugene as i said, i worked for ashworth. I didnt ask him many questions. He was going to be the head of my unit. I was working for him. To the best of my knowledge, i was his only employee at that time. Meaning working right with him. No question, he was going to handle a phase of that project. He was handling it. And he just said, look, i want you to get out of salton sea. I want you to do these things. I will keep in touch with you and you keep in touch with me and weve got to run this thing in a certain way. That is just what we did. He ran it. It was understood when that bomb was going to go overseas, ashworth was going to go with it. I might be there, but he was going to be the big wheel and that was perfectly all right. I had no problem with that. He was a great guy and he let me do what i wanted. I remember one time, we were on a trip and ended up in san diego and we were at the hotel right on the water. He being a naval officer had a beautiful room and i went to my room and there were six people in a room. I was sleeping in a room with six people that i never met before. Thats the way it worked. Reading here about, you try to get them to commission you as a navy officer . Eugene yes. When they told me i was going to get a direct commission, and i have been talking to ashworth. I said do you think theres any chance i can get into the navy instead of the army . Oh, i dont know. Well see what we can do, Something Like that. But i dont think he really intended. Face it, i went down there. I tried. I said i would rather be in the navy. They said thats not why you are here, you are going to be the army and thats that. I would have liked the navy, but it didnt matter. Tell me about going to fort bliss and becoming a Second Lieutenant at the convenience of the government. Eugene because they discharged me one day and they reenlisted me the next day. I was discharged as a technical sergeant. The next day i was enlisted as a Second Lieutenant. That is what all those discharge papers were about. The final discharge paper is when i got discharged in fort dixon, new jersey, when it was all over. When they had to say what i was and this and that and the other. I had high hopes. I really wanted to be in the navy. I dont know why. It wouldnt have made any difference. Tell me about going to Hamilton Field and going overseas. Eugene well, i was sent to Hamilton Field to go overseas. And i had orders to go to Hamilton Field and such and such. And such and such a date, i was going to go overseas. I got to Hamilton Field. Naturally, you go there and they want to see papers and so forth. They said you have to have shots. I say how long will i have to get these shots . Oh, you have to have them in three days. What am i going to do in the meantime . Go do whatever you want. Go wander around. So, i didnt have a real tight schedule. I had to wait for a c54 that was going to take off on a certain day and go to the pacific. While i was doing that, Walking Around San Francisco and i had at that time, i now had my Second Lieutenant uniform on. I was a big shot. The trolley would stop, come on, lieutenant. Get on. It was a real pleasure. I had two or three nice days. I felt guilty but i couldnt go anywhere because they didnt have any airplanes. I was naive to this point. When i got there, when i finally got there, i was told to report to the commanding general of the 20th air force. I think it was 20th. That was general lemay. I go to general lemays office. I got there and got a big sergeant sitting in the desk and he goes what do you want . I said i am here to see general lemay. Oh, really . Show me your orders. I show him my orders and my orders say report to the commanding general, 20th air force, curtis lemay. He said, what do you think this means . I said it means i have to see general lemay. He said everybody comes over here with orders that says report. Just get the hell out of here. Go down to the airport and get a ride. Im not going to talk to you. Nobody helped me. They just put me on an airplane. I remember the plane did not even have a door on it. The guy gave me a ride and that was all right. Getting toabout tinian and what that was and what happened. Eugene when i got to tinian, then we were really in the business of getting our loading pits ready and getting ready to load the airplane. We were proceeding toward the point where we knew that plane had to go. The time had been set. Now, you saw the pictures of those bombs. The way they had to be loaded was they were dropped into a pit in the ground and the plane was pulled over them either backwards or forwards. And then the bomb was pulled up into the bombay. We did that in a pit in the ground, which was adjacent to a metal building. We kept the bombs in the metal building. At night, we were ready to fly with them. We would take them out there, put them in the pit, run the plane over them, load them up and then pull the plane out. Those pictures and those drawings of tinian of the pits, and that was in a remote part of the island, all the way down to the end of the island. Everyone else on the island had no idea what we were doing down there. That is how we loaded them. To the best of my knowledge, i am the last guy that had his hand on that bomb that blew up nagasaki. Because we were all signing the bomb. Im the last guy to sign it. Since then, the last guy dropped dead. Hes gone. Next day, early, the plane takes off. Goes to well, they had to pick a target at the last minute. But, its interesting. We blew nagasaki to smithereens. Nagasaki is built back completely by the japanese. A beautiful city. Detroit got ruined a little later than that and it is still ruined. It was something. When those people, when the japanese knew what happened to them, all they wanted to do was put things back together. And that surrender was by the emperor, it was not by anybody else. He just made up his mind when he saw what those two bombs did. Of course, they thought we had more. We didnt have more. We had one more but it wasnt ready. If he was not going to see another bomb land on his country. So, thats when he quit. There is something you mentioned too before you wrote a note. You mentioned something about a ceremony for some big wheels. Eugene oh, thats what you mean [indiscernible] eugene he was the embedded reporter. We were in the tin building adjacent to the pit where the bomb had been loaded. And all the main characters were in there writing a note on the bomb before it was dropped into the pit. And lawrence was with the new york times, i believe. He sat there and he made notes and everybody autographed the bomb, had something cute to say. That was what that was all about. Lets see. I dont know if theres anything else you wrote about that i want to ask you. I like what you say here about you can talk more about this. All the security around all of this. You said you were smack in the middle of topsecret work and did not know how many around the world to hide your activity. Eugene i didnt know some of the stuff that was happening around me and i was running it. The security was absolutely tremendous. It was lowkey so that you didnt see strange people standing around, making it suspicious. Things just flowed. One thing you did know, you knew damn well you better not open your mouth or say anything you shouldnt say. You better do what everybody else is doing. But, that was it. Actually, let me ask you about this. The plane on its way to nagasaki, what did you do next . After the bomb went off . Eugene i stayed back because i had no reason to go. Once i finished my job, it was over. They didnt need me anymore. The guys that were going to take that bomb up there knew what they were doing, they knew how to get out of bombay, and put the fuses in and all that business. I served no purpose. I was going to go. That was going to be a treat for me, in a sense. Then in my own mind, i was not too anxious to get involved in all of that because as far as i was concerned, when that bomb left and it worked, it was over. Japan had been bombed and japan was not going to come back from that one. And the japanese knew it and we knew it. It really didnt matter what i did after we finished. Wendover, salton sea. It was done. How did you find out about the outcome of the bomb . Were you sitting around a radio . Eugene yes. We were actually intense. Our area was removed from everybody on tinian. We were around our radios. All the officers was there, i was there. All of a sudden, there was somehow, somebody said something. Oh, it went off. They blew up nagasaki or something. That was that. And we knew. Of course, the next morning, then you begin to hear they are ready to quit. Theyve had enough. Talk about what did the rest of tinian look like . Eugene for one thing, i told you, i believe, part of our strategy was we were taking dummy bombs and flying over some of the islands which surrounded tinian. We dropped one. They had dynamite in them, thats all. So, they would hit and it would be a tremendous boom. The people on the island, normally japanese soldiers, got used to seeing these bombs coming down. We were doing that regularly. It got to be routine with us. They would just go and come back. Did it work . Yeah, it worked fine. That was it. They never got to see. The people, nagasaki, they never saw what hit them. But i never went on any other mission with those dummy bombs. I would participate in loading and getting them out of there , but it was part of the procedure, thats all. How long did you stay on tinian after the bomb . Eugene i did not stay too long because i wanted to get back and get married and the general was nice enough to let me do it. I only stayed about two weeks, three weeks, Something Like that, and then i went back. How soon after that did you talk about your involvement . As soon as you were back in the states . Eugene as soon as i got back. I got back to los alamos. By the time we got back, there were already committees of scientists who were beginning to say we cannot ever do this again. Weve got to get rid of these bombs. Never again an atomic bomb. There was a whole group of them out there that made up their mind. They wanted to get rid of atomic power completely. There was a group of guys like me, not that i was that important, but a group of civilian guys who said thats crazy. Were going to figure out how to control this thing and we are going to have it because it is going to be a deterrent for years to come. But a lot of the big scientists were very much for dumping nuclear power, get rid of it. When we get back to los alamos, we heard a lot of that, that was going around. A lot of it. I never got too much into those discussions because i did my thing and i didnt figure i was in the Delivery Group. Once it got delivered, i was done with it. 50 years ago. I can remember their first name, last name, what they did and everything else. Funny how the mind works. Or doesnt. Eugene works or doesnt, youre right. Tell me, just because im curious, how long was it you got to talk to your parents and let them know what it was all about . Eugene well, when i got back to San Francisco which was probably three or four weeks. I told him i wanted to get married out there. He immediately suggested that he and my uncle were going to quick grab an airplane and come out to the wedding. I immediately suggested to him that was not going to happen. That we were going to get married at the university of california and there werent going to be anybody around but us. So, he accepted that after a while. Did you tell him on the phone why you were wearing civilian clothes and all that about the card . Eugene as soon as the bomb went, he got that idea pretty quick and called me some place. Maybe i was on some street in california when he put a call in. I told him now you know what i was doing. What did you do right after the war . You got married, the war is ending and over. What happened next . Eugene well, i came back. I said, we had a Construction Company, still have it. Our company is 104 years old. We got back. I started with the Construction Company and i got very much involved in that. Our Construction Company started with my grandfather coming here from italy and bringing two sons with him. They just walked around, see someone building a house and they would go up and say can we give you a price on doing the brick work . He couldnt speak english. That is how they did it. When i got into the company, i was really the first one who had been to school, had an engineering degree and so forth, so i began running the company. That is what i did until i quit and came here. Looking back on the war, how do you feel about your involvement with this project and what you did during your service time . Eugene well, i have a strange history. Los alamos and all that part that impresses me. I like that too. Then from there, i went into the Construction Business. I began to run my company. And i started on another line of trying to work done with the work down with the unions in washington, d. C. I got myself into some see that book right there . I got myself into some weird situations. I heard you paint houses. That means you knock people off. I got mixed up with those unions trying to do some good. The first thing you know, they are going to knock me off. That gang. I got a story to tell there. I have got to put that together one day. Jimmy hoffaou and didnt get along, did you . Eugene well, i had been to jail. He was back out. He wanted to take the union back. Meantime, the mafia had gotten together and take it over the union. So, they just told jimmy to go pack it. He said, im taking this union back. Fitzsimmons was going to take the union. Jimmy was the most powerful man in the world right then with the Teamsters Pension plan and all that. He had a guy working for him by the name of Frank Shearon who was in actual combat in africa and italy. Actual combat for 407 straight days, on the line. You can imagine what kind of an animal that was. I got to meet him. He was going to kill me. So, i got that to write too. I will show you the original booklet. Im intrigued now. You got to tell me more about this. Why did he want to kill you . Eugene just because he thought he should. That was the way he was going to get me to do what he wanted to do. Bad guys. Bad guys. I was trying to help the Construction Industry and i got crossways with him. I am not over that yet. How long did that go on . Eugene well, that went on until about, probably seven or eight years ago when he quit. Well, he died. And he killed jimmy hoffa. Im curious, too. This is just me wondering. Guys like that are after you or wanting to kill you. How did you protect yourself . How did you keep that from happening . Eugene i called the union up. They owed me some favors. I was working with the unions to help them with a problem they had. This was a whole other story. When you are in the Construction Business, the worst thing that can happen to you is if you are a Union Contractor is the carpenters and plasterers begin to have an argument over who is supposed to do a certain job. Ais called jurisdictional dispute. Contractors have no power. So, what they have, they have an Arbitration Group in washington composed of contractors and union people. They go down there, listen to these disputes and make a decision. Those unions they get together and say can you stay for dinner tonight . They will start and they make a deal. They say look, i am giving him the job and you dont tell anybody. You say we fought like hell and you say he had to get the job. That is the kind of stuff theyd pull. I was doing all that, i got in trouble with them. And after i got in trouble, they got worse so i ended up with this gang nuttier than fruitcakes. We were supposed to have a meeting. I call washington and said get somebody up here because this guy is crazy. He wants to kill me. They sent a guy up. He had a head like this, didnt have a hair on it. He handed me his card. A. Angelo capone, consultant. Consultant . What the hell do you do . Dont worry, i am with the union. The union was being run by the mafia then. He was going to step in in case i needed help. It all ended up in a mess and shearon was going to knock me off. The plan was so typical. Its how they had done it before. It was obvious it was going to happen. But thats all right. Im still here and hes dead. [laughter] thankfully, he got distracted or busy with other things. Eugene what happened, he finally went to, i guess he went to a priest and wanted to confess. The priest said i tell you what, you go to the police first, confess to them and after you confess to the police, come back to the church and we will help you out. Thats how it went. Thats the story of the book after, just before he killed hoffa. The first book is over here. It was written by the attorney general of the state of delaware. He researched and did all this and wrote the book. And of course, he got in touch with me and wanted to know how i was making out. That is how i got involved in the thing. That is fascinating. Gene they said, well, here is what we want. We want 2 an hour, this, this. You say, i cant do that. Ok, we will blow your shop up. We will dynamite your shop. We will run your front door with trucks. You think they are kidding until you look out your window and see sticks of dynamite on the roof of your shop. The only thing that kept them from exploding was the wicks fell in a puddle of water. Then you look and you see a molotov cocktail out there. They are not kidding. If they say they are going to kill you, they are going to kill you. Thats another story. What do you think is important for future generations, especially students and young people, what do you think is important for them to know, especially about your service . What is a lesson they can learn from the things that you learned during the war . Eugene i guess im no different than anybody else. It only proves that if you are given an assignment and you have reasonable intelligence, reasonable training and you can put your mind to it, you can do it. I mean, you have got to first pick the target, work on the target and thats it. You can get spread all over the place. You cannot get spread all over the place. After i delivered that bomb into that airplane, they didnt need me anymore. I could get lost, and i did. But, i did my job. I got it to where it would go in that airplane and work. That was that. Did you this is something i asked other people about who worked on the project did you ever catch any flak afterwards . A lot of people were really upset about the atomic bomb. Did anybody ever give you about what you did or your involvement . Eugene not too much. If you are involved like i was and they know it, they are more impressed with that. Besides, its amazing how many people the atomic bomb. Nagasaki, thats another time. You dont get too much of that. The thing i get mostly is what we are doing here. People ask about it. For me, theres no question about it. It was a strange series of circumstances. I was just standing at the right place at the right time every damn time, and i ended up in this thing, so. Prepare to cast off. Thank you. You are watching American History tv covering history cspan style with event coverage, eyewitness accounts, archival films, lectures in College Classrooms and visits to museums and historic places, all weekend every weekend on cspan 3. Each week, American History brings you archival films that provide context for todays Public Affair issue