Pages

Monday, May 27, 2019

WWII

Colorized B&W photo of Royce in 1944 (which looks much the same as today)
Here is something you may not have known about UCLA during World War II:

Students sell war bonds (1944)
...While the campus was on high alert — with enough food for 50,000 people reportedly stashed under the Arroyo Bridge, in case of attack — the university’s most clandestine wartime activity took place in downtown Los Angeles, in the UCLA Extension building. Code-named Project 36, the top-secret operation involved UCLA in the development of the first atomic bomb. While scientists toiled in a laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M., under a government contract with the University of California, UCLA’s task was to purchase and deliver the equipment and materials necessary for the success of the Manhattan Project — from rats to 10-ton trucks to meteorological balloons. Suppliers often questioned the university’s unusual orders, and UCLA purchasing agents took items such as typewriters and microscopes from campus labs, unaware of how their acquisitions would be used...

Full story at:
http://magazine.ucla.edu/depts/hailhills/ucla-goes-to-war/

A listing of UCLA war dead in WWII can be found at:
https://www.ww2research.com/world-war-2-dead-ucla/

No comments: