LETTERS HOME FROM THE ATOMIC FUEL PRODUCTION CAPITAL

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

For those that left the friendly confines of home to face the ugly face of war the only form of communication with their love ones was in a form of a letter.

To some, it would be the first time they would say something on paper, but it was always a great comfort to write and/or receive one.

One soldier wrote, “Mail call whenever it happened it was a delight and indispensable. We could not have won the war without it.”

In the beginning the mail going and coming from abroad was slow and misguided. But within time, Americans were advised to use V-mail of which letters were written on a special one-sided form.

All letters were sent to Washington where they were opened and read by army censors, photographed and placed on 16 mm microfilm - from there, they took flight overseas.

Among the pile of letters sitting in Washington was one of Andres de la Garza, writing to his father, Eluterio, who at the time lived in Brownsville.

 A special letter…

Andres joins the army on or about 1943 and for about two and half years had been writing home, but never revealing to any of his family members what kind of job he was doing.

All he would say is that he was working at war plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, as an assistant supervisor of a group of workers. But, now we know that Oak Ridge was one of three concealed cities in the United States that were created for special projects. The plant at Oak Ridge was sitting
on 60, 000 acres of farmland from which all civilian population was relocated.

In one of Andres’ final letters after the war, he reveals that he was at the Tennessee plant as part of a crew that was manufacturing U-235, an essential material used in the construction of the “atomic bomb.”

Andres had a personal reason why he wanted the bomb to be successful. He had four brothers in military service at the time. Capt. Guillermo de la Garza, serving in Army Medical Corps in Europe of which he was discharged by August of 1945.

But his three other brothers were still engaged in the army: Enrique, who was a Captain, was in Germany, Pvt., Roberto de la Garza was at Fort Lewis, Washington and Rodolfo was serving in the Navy aboard the steamship Alaska.

Andres was a Brownsville High graduate and attended Rice Institute. In a follow-up letter, Andres wrote his father that he was elevated at the plant, but what his promotion was, Andres did not say.