Uranium From Congo For Atomic Research

Northern Advocate, 21 December 1945, Page 2

Uranium From Congo For Atomic Research

CASABLANCA, Dec. 19. The Belgian Congo played a wartime role in furnishing uranium for atomic bomb research and development. Belgian and American engineers who vvorked in the Cpngo say that millions. of dollars’ worth of American machinery was employed during the war in working the uranium deposits. The American Westinghouse Company, it is reported, will send several million dollars’ worth of orders to Africa in 1946 for the development of uranium as a future source of atomic power. South African firms also are assured of heavy orders for machinery./-

Engineers said the reason for the wartime activities in. the Congo was kept a close secret. Until the first bomb hit Hiroshima the Americans in the Cohgo were mystified by the little sacks of rusty.-looking, reddish soil and rubble going out interminably in what looked like little sugar bags, ' ■