experience. He was a firem

an 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, p

erio

d." As the soldiers a
t Trinity Site settled

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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 R

aemer Schreiber, Robert
Bacher was the adviso

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r and Marshall Holloway and Philip Morrison had overall responsibility. Louis Slotin, Boyce McDaniel and Cyril Smith were responsible for the mechanical assembly in the ranch hou

se. Later Holloway was responsible for the

mechanical assembl
y at the tower. In the
afternoon of t
he 13th the core

was taken to gro

und zero for insertion into the bomb mechanism. The bomb w
as assembled under the tower on July 13. The plutonium core was inserted into the device with some
difficulty. On the first try it stuck. After letting the tem

peratures of the plutonium and casing equalize the cor

e slid smoothly into place. Once the assembly was complete many of the men took a welcome relief and went swimming in the water tank east of the McDonald ranch house. The next morning