Sandia Base - Transition To Nuclear Weapons Activities

Transition To Nuclear Weapons Activities

Leslie Groves and Robert Oppenheimer faced the challenges of turning a war-driven, short-term bomb design effort into a stable peacetime operation in charge of producing and maintaining a nuclear stockpile for the nation. A serious short-term problem was retaining personnel, particularly at Los Alamos where many scientists and technicians were eager to return to civilian pursuits. The solutions to the challenges led directly to the transformation of Albuquerque's old Oxnard Field into the nation's principal nuclear weapons installation.

Atomic Bomb engineering was carried out by the Z Division, named for its director, Dr. Jerrold R. Zacharias from Los Alamos. Z Division was conceived as an ordnance design, testing, and assembly arm. However, space was at a premium at Los Alamos. Additionally, members of Z Division needed to work closely with the military. Groves also decided as part of an effort to retain personnel to focus the laboratory more on weapons development by relocating various weapons production and assembly activities away from Los Alamos. Thus, the decision was taken to move Z Division to the old Oxnard Field. Already at the close of the war, the engineering group of Z Division had begun consolidating weapons assembly functions there. Z Division was initially located at Wendover Field but moved to Oxnard Field, New Mexico, in September 1945 to be closer to Los Alamos. By 1946, the site was being referred to as "Sandia Base" after the nearby Sandia Mountains.

In January 1947, the rest of Z Division completed its move to Sandia Base. That same month, Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson and Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal established the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (AFSWP) to assume all of the military functions of the Manhattan Engineering District. The ASWP took over the Albuquerque base. Z Division and AFSWP brought to Sandia Base the strict secrecy which had prevailed at Los Alamos. In 1947, amid much public speculation about what was going on at Sandia Base, the military would only say that the activities at Sandia Base were secret under the Atomic Energy Act. When Secretary of the Army Kenneth Claiborne Royall visited Sandia Base in 1948, he falsely announced that "guided missile" development was underway at the base.