Oral History Interview with Sheldon Gerson, March 16, 2016 Page: Title Page

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Sheldon Gerson. Gerson was drafted into the Army in August 1944. He completed basic training at Camp Joseph T. Robinson, Little Rock, Arkansas. He took infantry training, preparing him for combat. He was an expert rifleman and was the acting Sergeant of the First Platoon. He was taken out of his company and transferred into the Army Specialized Training Program at Penn State University. There he studied electrical engineering. He was then transferred to work on the atomic bomb. He was placed in the 9812th Technical Service Unit. He explains his experiences with a top-secret mission to Oak Ridge, Tennessee in April 1945. He was working as a chemical engineer to help develop and produce an atomic bomb under the auspices of the Manhattan Engineer District. He details what he did in the laboratory. From there he went to another ultra-secretive facility in Los Alamos, New Mexico where the atomic bomb was being developed by Robert Oppenheimer. Gerson was discharged in June 1946.