Both men were carefully checked before the Army assigned them to the Los Alamos atom-bomb plant in 1944. Heavy-set Alexander von der Luft, 23, had been born in Wilmington. His father was an official of the American Cyanamid and Chemical Corp. at Bridgeville, Pa. Von der Luft had interrupted his study of chemical engineering at Princeton University to enlist. He was quiet and studious. Earnest Wallis had been born in Indianapolis in 1913. He had left school to go into commercial photography in Cleveland. His father was a railroad auditor of modest means.
At Los Alamos, the two men never...
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