Iowa State quietly saved the Manhattan Project, assured an Allied victory and forever changed history.

Watching the young men and women sailors scramble aboard the new USS Iowa submarine as ship sponsor Christie Vilsack announced, “Board our boat and bring her to life!” I wondered if they understood Iowa State University’s role in ushering in the nuclear age?  

Did these sailors know Iowa State was the only university to receive the Army Navy “E for Excellence” banner after World War II? 

At that moment I reminded myself to send the book, “Wilhelm’s Way — The Inspiring Story of the Iowa Chemist Who Saved the Manhattan Project” to the submarine commander of the nuclear-powered USS Iowa. I wanted him to know how an ISU chemistry professor changed world history. 

To understand the story, you need to return to the end of 1941.

Theoretically, the idea of nuclear energy and a possible nuclear bomb had been conceived by physicists.  However, to test the theory, thousands of pounds of pure uranium were needed to create the first nuclear bomb. Chemists at Westinghouse and prestigious universities had only created mere grams of not-quite-pure uranium. The newly established Manhattan Project was stalled, unless someone figured out how to purify uranium — and fast. 

By February 1942, Iowa State’s head of physical chemistry, Frank Spedding, was contacted by the University of Chicago’s Manhattan Project team. He learned of the project’s numerous challenges, including the need for a process to purify uranium which required a special furnace. Fortunately, Iowa State had such a furnace and Spedding immediately brought in ISU professor Harley Wilhelm, a sharecropper’s son from southern Iowa, who understood chemistry and metallurgy. Though completely under-resourced in a ramshackle lab, Wilhelm began experiments to purify uranium.

Scientific innovation is not always pretty. Explosions and fires seemed routine in the Physical Chemistry lab that summer. But Wilhelm and a team of graduate students kept trying new approaches to purify uranium and learn from their failures.  

By August 1942, the first glimmers of success appeared. A 20-gram piece of pure uranium was produced in the lab! The basic process worked. But could the process be made more efficient and larger? 

By Sept. 23, Harley Wilhelm and team had done it. He boarded the night train to Chicago, carrying an 11-pound ingot of pure uranium to show the Manhattan Project leaders. Upon seeing this much pure uranium, the director’s “eyes bugged out and his jaw dropped,” according to Wilhelm. Could an Iowa State chemistry professor have accomplished what the best funded private and university labs in the nation had failed to achieve? 

To test the claim, they asked Wilhelm to saw it in half to prove it did not have a cavity inside. The sawing resulted in a small fire but showed a pure solid mass of uranium. They sent a portion to MIT to confirm its purity. It was pure.

By November, the War Department signed a contract with Iowa State to produce pure uranium through Operation Quik Phix.  In the next few years, the Ames facility, called “Little Ankeny,” delivered 2 million pounds of pure uranium to the war effort. Moreover, the Ames Process yielded pure uranium at a cost of $1.55 per pound, instead of the $1,000 per pound anticipated by Westinghouse, saving the government hundreds of millions.

With the War Department’s gratitude, Iowa State and Wilhelm both received the Army Navy “E for Excellence” banner. Iowa State had quietly saved the Manhattan Project, assured an Allied victory and forever changed history.

On the submarine pier, I listened with pride as Gov. Kim Reynolds and U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks recalled the previous versions of the mighty USS Iowa. When Christie Vilsack charged the crew to “bring her to life!” I knew the living heart of this nuclear-powered submarine beat with the pure-uranium-powered energy and science of Iowa State University and its brilliant professor, Harley Wilhelm.  His story constantly reminds me of the importance of university researchers and their impact in times of war and peace.

Wendy Wintersteen is president of Iowa State University.