KENNEBUNK — While attending high school in Scotch Plains Township, New Jersey, Joan Fricke often wondered why her father was seldom home, but believed that his work was sure to help the United States prevail in World War II.
Her father, Victor Joseph Duplin Sr., had attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and worked as a ceramic engineer for the Babcock and Wilcox Company.
As the war intensified, Duplin had been recruited as one of the brightest scientific minds of his generation to serve America as part of the Manhattan Project, a top-secret initiative to develop a functional atomic weapon to be used in warfare.
“What I remember the most about my Dad during the time that he was home with us was him just sitting and reading,” Fricke said. “Each time he left, my mother Louise only had a telephone number for him somewhere out west. He never talked about his work, only that the government had sworn him to secrecy.”

Fricke, 91, now lives in Kennebunk and had a long career as a seamstress while creating thousands of wedding dresses for brides in York County.
She believes that Duplin’s mastery and knowledge of KO Wool, a strong, lightweight, insulating material made from long ceramic fibers, undoubtedly played a role in his selection to join the Manhattan Project. KO Wool was used extensively by atomic engineers in designing the bomb because of its low-heat storage capacity and complete resistance to thermal shock.
“We eventually came to know that whatever it was my father was doing while he was away was extremely important,” Fricke said. “I recall right after he left the first time that a number of government men wearing suits came around asking a lot of questions about him and our family. We now know that they were asking questions for his top-security clearance to work on the Manhattan Project.”

As the war went on, Duplin’s visits home grew shorter each time, but Fricke said that their family just accepted that as a sacrifice that they and many other families across the country were making to help win the war.
“We just assumed he was deep into something and treasured the time he was at home with us,” she said. “It was hard every time he left though. He truly loved us and we greatly missed him while he was away.”
On the evening of Aug. 5, 1945, Duplin was back home with his family when he told them that on the following day they would finally learn what he had been working on during the war.
The next day the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima as American military forces were preparing for an invasion of Japan that predictions estimated could have led to millions of U.S. casualties and tens of millions of Japanese casualties.
The Hiroshima uranium bomb exploded with more than 13 kilotons of force and between 90,000 and 166,000 are believed to have died directly or indirectly from the bomb’s effects.
Three days later on Aug. 9, 1945, a 21-kiloton plutonium atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, and it’s estimated that between 40,000 and 75,000 people died immediately following the atomic explosion, while another 60,000 people suffered severe injuries. It resulted in Japan’s complete surrender on Aug. 14, 1945, and the end of the deadliest war of all time.
After World War II, Fricke’s mother died and her father continued to work for Babcock and Wilcox. He eventually remarried and moved to Lynchburg, Virgina, where he taught college classes and lived on a farm raising Black Angus cattle. He died in 1989.

Fricke raised a family and ran a motel in Lake Placid, New York, before moving to Kennebunk to work for the Chamber of Commerce. Her sewing prowess grew and eventually she operated her own local wedding gown business.
“I had lived at my grandmother’s house in Medford, Massachusetts, and got to really know New England,” she said. “We used to vacation at Molasses Pond near Ellsworth in the summertime and I loved Maine. So when the opportunity came about to move here, I jumped at the chance.”
Looking back on her father’s contributions to the war effort, Fricke said she’s keenly aware and profoundly saddened by the destructive power that the atomic bomb unleashed and how many people died as a result of America’s decision to use it to bring an end to World War II.
“Yes, it was absolutely a horrible and terrible thing, but it also saved countless lives of American servicemen who would have died trying to take Japan otherwise. Without the scientists and professionals who were part of the Manhattan Project, it might be a entirely different world we live in today,” Fricke said. “I’m extremely proud of my father’s work and his legacy.”

Ed Pierce can be reached at 282-1535 or at editor@journaltribune.com.

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