2025 Canyons Resort Drive
Park City, Utah 84098
September 9, 2008
Dear Isabella,
I hope that you may find some of these old letters of interest. They cover a great many happy experiences with Harvey many years ago when we were in the Army together. My mother saved all he letters I wrote home during the war.
I have always felt my rooming with him at NYU in Gould Hall on the old Engineering School campus up at University Heights in the Bronx was a highlight in my short army career. I realized very quickly that this was a most unusual young man in the genius category -- interesting that we were stationed right next to the rotunda for the Hall of Fame! (Most everyone is acquainted with the expression "Hall of Fame", but I have rarely run into anyone who knows that this place actually exists high up on the bluff in the Bronx -- now known as the Bronx Community College.)
I certainly had no idea at the time what lay in store for me regarding eventual assignment to the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. Perhaps Harvey had an inkling regarding the ultra secret project because of his time at MIT and special technical work there with which he was already involved -- with the Air Corps and General Hap Arnold, as I recall, and perhaps with some of the radar developments. I listened with amazement as Willy (You will have to excuse me and the rest of our roommates who periodically called him Willy or Harve or Junior.) tried to explain to me what was involved in his patent regarding color photography. I think he called it something like "44 degree flash". It certainly stimulated my imagination and along with his encouragement, I for the first time entertained the idea of going to graduate school after finishing up at Vanderbilt after the war. I really had no idea at the time what MIT represented when Harvey told me I should seriously think about it.
Some years ago I think I listed the names of our room mates in Gould Hall but neither Harvey nor I had kept up contact with them. Perhaps if I list them now they may be of interest. We were all interviewed by a couple of civilians early in the Spring of 1945. I think in total there must have been close to 50 of us G.I.'s billeted there. About half of the group wound up in the Manhattan Project somewhere and some of the others were shipped off to Presque Isle, Maine to become Chief Engineers on the new B-29 bomber for service in the Pacific. Only one of the whole bunch decided he could no longer wait around before getting in on the "action". This was Lothrop (Lo) Jordon from the Boston area who volunteered for the Paratroops and proudly returned to visit us in May in his special uniform.
One of our room mates, Ken Orben from Milford, PA, shared a double bunk bed with me at Los Alamos. He returned to Penn State to continue his education after the war. I am sorry to state that I eventually lost track of all of these guys after the war as we went our separate ways in family life.
Ray Garramone was from Weehauken, right across the river. We were a bit envious of him as he could catch a ferry home any weekend. I remember Ray as being the peacemaker in our group whenever we had arguments!
Dick Reed, from the Boston area, was the truly handsome soldier among us who was always good to have along when we felt the need to attract the attention of young ladies!! I remember in particular one venture down to Times Square when Willy and I got Dick to put on some dark glasses and to act as if he were a blind soldier back in the US. We walked on either side of him as if to offer guidance. It worked well! We would up with several opportunities and eventually had a great time at a dance in one of the hotels.
The other three room mates were Joe Rosen, Ritchie Smith (Smitty!) and Al (whose name I cannot locate at the moment) -- young guys, all of us, 19 or 20 years old to whom the possibility never occurred that we might actually lose that horrible war. When I think of the world today I cannot help but realize how naive we were back then, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to think there could never be another war.
I hope and pray as our present world situation develops that there will be more people like Harvey with his unique intelligence and our roommates with their youthful patriotism and confidence, who know we can again successfully confront evil that is forced upon us.
With wonderful memories and loving prayers of support for you all,
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