Participant Info
- Membership Number
- 4591
- Salutation
- First Name
- Bessie Lou
- Middle/Maiden/Previous
- Sizemore
- Last Name
- Young
- Address 1
- 7676 Keavy Rd
- Address 2
- City
- London
- State
- KY
- Zip Code
- 40744
- Phone
- 606-864-6286
- Code
- RO
- Work Code #
- 1,6,7
- State Membership
- KY
- Status
- Date of Birth
- 07/10/1923
- Date of Death
- Deceased At Join?
- Comments
- Bendix Home Appliances in the area had been converted to a riveting shop. Young and her sister-in-law took employment there and began work on airplane wings. They took opposite sides of the plane. Once wings were finished for the day, Young was tasked with stenciling ammunition crates. Young made her next home in Detroit, Michigan. "I got a job at Packard's and worked there on an assembly line for the airplane transmission," remembered Young. "I was a lapper. It's where the transmission is cut in two -- I sanded all the burs off that to stop the transmission fluid from leaking.""The higher-ups at Packard's wanted to transfer my parents down to Oak Ride to work at this plant," explained Hale. "They never told them what they would be doing. No one at the plant knew what they were actually doing. They couldn't speak to each other about their jobs." Young's task was to spend a working day pushing buttons on a device known as a "calutron." What she didn't realize at the time was that this device was separating isotopes of uranium. Nuclear scientist Earnest Lawson developed the calutron during the Manhattan Project. Young, along with the other "calutron girls" at Oak Ridge, was unwittingly collecting uranium for a venture that forever changed the landscape of warfare and foreign policy -- the atomic bomb. In fact, the United States Department of Energy lists five fast facts about the "Calutron Girls" and number one is that "most of these young women didn't know what they were working on. All they were told was that their work would be vital to the war effort." "It's hard to believe I was working on those bombs. We didn't have no idea," said Young. "It wasn't until it was reported in the news how those bombs were made that I put two and two together." George and Billy Sizemore were released from the military following the end of World War II.
- Name/Location of Company Worked
- Dates of Work
- Type of Work
- Rosie Name if Rb or Rv
- Is/Was Rosie a member of ARRA?
- Contact Name (Deceased Rosie Contact)
- Contact Email Address
- Contact Phone Number
- Contact Relationship