.
A view of the ea
st sid e of base camp. In the le
ft foreground is t
he Dave
McDonald ranch house, not to be confused with the George McDonald
ranch where the bomb's core was assembled.
Army on Jan. 26, 1945. He said he passed
through four camps, took basic for two days
and arrived at Trinity Site on Feb. 17. On
arriving he was put in charge of what he
called the "East Jesus and Socorro Light and
Water Company." It was a one-man operation
--himself. He was responsible for
maintaining generators, wells, pumps and
doing the power-line work.
A friend of Rudder's, Loren Bourg, had
a similar experience. He was a fireman in
civilian life and ended up trained as a
fireman for the Army. He worked as the
station sergeant at Los Alamos before being
sent to Trinity Site inApril1945. In a letter
Bourg said, "I was sent down here to take
over the fire prevention and fire department.
Upon arrival I found I was the fire department,
period."
As the soldiers at Trinity Site settled in
they became familiar with Socorro. They
tried to use the water out of the ranch wells
but found it so alkaline they couldn't drink
it. In fact, they used Navy saltwater soap
for bathing. They hauled drinking water
from the fire house in Socorro. Gasoline
According to Raemer Schreiber, Robert
Bacher was the advisor and Marshall
Holloway and Philip Morrison had overall
responsibility. Louis Slotin, Boyce
McDaniel an