The Jack Case Center

By Ray Smith — The Jack Case Center is the name selected for the new production support facility. The name — chosen by a 2 to 1 margin with more than 300 voting — honors the memory of Jack M. Case, the Y 12 Plant Manager with the longest tenure — 15 years.

Case served from 1967 to 1982 as Y 12's strong and compelling leader, but his involvement in Y 12's history goes much further back. Over the next several months, we will share stories about his contributions to our history. Today's anecdotes are provided courtesy of Bill Wilcox.

The first story of Jack’s personal involvement in our history begins during Y 12's first major mission transition. Y 12 was constructed in about 18 months, beginning in February 1943, to house the 1152 calutrons required to separate the uranium 235 needed for the first atomic bomb used in warfare (some 50 kg was actually shipped to Los Alamos). The nine major buildings and all the necessary support structures were built in 18 months; today the two privately financed buildings — the New Hope Building and the Jack Case Center — are also scheduled for completion in 18 months.

Shortly after the war's end in 1945, Y 12's employee population dropped from 22,000 to close to 3,000. Only Building 9204-3 (Beta 3) and Building 9731 (the Pilot Facility and first building completed) continued to function as calutron buildings. The uranium 235 separation mission moved from Y 12 to K 25, because the gaseous diffusion method was more economical than the electromagnetic separation process. Y 12 was without a mission, and workers began preparations to remove the calutrons and return the 13,700 tons of silver borrowed from the U.S. Treasury for electrical conductors because of the copper shortage during the war.

In July 1947, with unrest regarding Russia already hinting at the Cold War, more atomic bombs were to be manufactured. Some of the research-oriented top officials of Los Alamos were reluctant to get into the post-war business of producing the stockpile of nuclear weapons requested by the government. They did not have the staff or facilities to undertake any major expansion of production work with uranium.

Case, telling the story on Y 12's second-era's 40th anniversary in 1987, said the idea that Y 12 should get into this weapons business came from AEC Washington's General Manager Walt Williams, who thought the now-excess facilities at Y 12 could be used for machining uranium. Williams asked Y 12 to send a team to Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory to find out what would be needed to produce additional weapons of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki type designs, then come back to Y 12 and install the equipment to manufacture them.
Case (from the Machine Shops), Wimpy Hilton (from Tool Design), and John Strohecker (from Engineering) went to LASL, where they were admitted to the highly classified weapons areas. The morning of the first day they were shown “everything,” but about noon — long before they had a chance to get much of the information they needed — someone “up the line pulled the plug,” told the Y 12'ers their clearances were no good and had them ousted from the plant. Case said they “cooled their heels” out there for quite awhile phoning home, hiking and sightseeing while top AEC officials kept the phones lines hot trying to get things back on course. After an extended period, the team finally got back in.
When they came back to Tennessee, the team designed and built the facilities for machining uranium in hooded milling machines and the first facilities for producing uranium metal from green salt (UF4) in greater than lab-scale quantities.

LASL and AEC managers insisted Y 12 provide a cost estimate for producing a certain number and type of weapons components. The Y 12 team was at a complete loss as to how to estimate the cost, not knowing in any detail what equipment and labor would be needed. Y 12 had no experience at all with machining uranium metal parts, but the AEC insisted. The team finally came up with an estimate of $500,000, which turned out to be just what was charged!

As these anecdotes indicate, Case played a central role in key decisions regarding Y 12 as early as 1947. In a future article, we will share the story of what happened in April 1944 when both he and his brother were being drafted into the Army and he was sent to Oak Ridge while his brother was sent to fight in the war overseas. The details of that story will come from Case's son, Larry. Larry Case has also agreed to provide photos of his dad that will be of interest to those of you who never met him.